Celtic clinched their fourth Scottish Premiership title in as many seasons on Saturday after they hammered Dundee United 5-0 at Tannadice Park.
The Hoops ran riot on their way to the trophy with a five-star display against Jim Goodwin’s side, as Adam Idah and Nicolas Kuhn scored two goals each and Ryan Strain scored an own goal.
Brendan Rodgers has now won the league title in Scotland in all four of his full seasons in charge of the club, and has the chance to win the treble if his team can beat Aberdeen in the final of the SFA Cup at Hampden Park.
The Northern Irish head coach won the Premiership and the League Cup in his first year back at Parkhead in the 2023/24 campaign, having left in 2019 to join Leicester City.
Rodgers had initially joined the Scottish giants ahead of the 2016/17 campaign and won the league title that year and in the 2017/18 season, before eventually departing before the end of his third term.
The Celtic manager had some terrific players, as he does with the current squad, during that first spell at Parkhead, including winger Scott Sinclair.
Why Scott Sinclair was a star for Brendan Rodgers
The English forward was one of the first signings made by Rodgers in the summer of 2016, joining on a permanent deal from Aston Villa for a fee that could rise to £4.5m.
This was a move that made a lot of sense at the time because the Northern Irish boss had already managed Sinclair at Championship and Premier League level with Swansea City, and the winger scored 35 goals in 90 matches for the Welsh outfit under the boss.
Sinclair hit the ground running with a tremendous debut campaign in Scottish football in the 2016/17 campaign. The £4.5m signing ended that term with a return of 25 goals and ten assists in 50 appearances in all competitions, including 21 goals in 35 Premiership outings.
Celtic’s wing wizard followed that up with 18 goals and 17 assists in 55 games in all competitions for the Hoops in the 2017/18 campaign, helping Rodgers to win a second title in as many seasons in Glasgow.
The manager left before the end of the 2018/19 campaign, but Sinclair still managed to rack up 17 goals and seven assists in 43 matches in all competitions before the head coach’s move to Leicester.
As you can see in the clips above, the English dynamo had the quality to mix great movement inside the box to score ‘easy’ goals with the technical ability and invention to find the back of the net from range with stunning strikes.
Sinclair was an electric attacker who was a star for Rodgers because he could consistently provide quality at the top end of the pitch as both a scorer and a creator.
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Some people may look at the form that Daizen Maeda has produced on the pitch for Celtic this season and suggest that he is the manager’s new version of Sinclair, but that is not the case.
Why Daizen Maeda is not the new Scott Sinclair
The Japan international has been in phenomenal form in the current campaign for the Scottish giants, with a return of 33 goals and nine assists in 46 appearances in all competitions.
There is no denying that the 27-year-old attacker has been a superstar for the Hoops, but 14 of those 33 goals have been scored with him playing in a centre-forward position.
Maeda is more of a fox in the box, whether he starts out wide on the left or through the middle as a striker, as all of his goals in the Premiership and the Champions League have been scored from inside the box.
This suggests that the Japanese attacker is not particularly similar to Sinclair, who only played four matches as a striker in his entire Celtic career, because he is more of an inside forward rather than a traditional winger.
Maeda may not be the new Sinclair at Parkhead for Rodgers, but the Celtic manager may have unearthed his next version of the winger in Nicolas Kuhn.
How Nicolas Kuhn is similar to Scott Sinclair
Despite playing on the opposite wing to Sinclair, who operated on the left flank, the German forward has a lot of similarities to the former Hoops sensation.
Like the English whiz, Kuhn is an out-and-out winger who has played on the wing in all 51 of his starts for the club in all competitions to date, with 48 of those coming on the right wing.
The former Rapid Vienna star has scored 21 goals and provided 17 assists in 64 matches for the Bhoys to date, including 18 goals and 14 assists in 46 appearances this term.
As you can see in the clip above, Kuhn has shown that he has the quality to deliver terrific goals on the biggest stage, finding the back of the net from distance against RB Leipzig in the Champions League earlier this term.
Appearances
40
39
Goals
20
15
Shots from outside the box
5
13
Goals from outside the box
0
2
Dribbles completed per game
0.7
1.8
Assists
9
9
As you can see in the table above, the German attacker offers more of a traditional wide threat in comparison to Maeda, because he likes to dribble at opposition full-backs to create attacks out of nothing, and the winger is willing to take on more shots from distance to score stunning goals.
This shows that Rodgers has unearthed his new version of Sinclair in Kuhn, because he is another wing wizard who can provide consistent quality as a goalscorer, mixing finishes inside the box with quality long-range strikes and exciting dribbling, whereas Maeda is more of a striker in the way that he plays, whether that is as a centre-forward or starting on the left.
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Hopefully, the German attacker can continue to deliver in the final third in the weeks, months, and years to come under Rodgers to enjoy as successful a Celtic career as Sinclair did.