Most fans’ eyes were drawn to the name ‘Scott Sinclair’ when Celtic’s Europa League group stage squad was released on Thursday afternoon.
The Englishman could perhaps even be considered a surprise inclusion as Neil Lennon selected the men tasked with firing Celtic to post-Christmas European football for the third consecutive season.
Sinclair has effectively been thrust to the side by Lennon in recent months. The Treble Treble hero has played 60 minutes of football so far this campaign, and not notched a single start.
Quite simply, he has been disregarded by the Celtic boss. So why the Europa League inclusion?
Will Sinclair be given Europa League chance?
It’s not as if Celtic aren’t blessed for left-wingers. Lewis Morgan, Mikey Johnston and Mohamed Elyounoussi were all included in the squad named by Lennon for the matches against Rennes, Cluj and Lazio.
Sinclair is undoubtedly number four on that pecking order at present so it’ll take an extremely unlikely run of injuries for him to get a chance.
Lennon may feel that his European experience is something that could be of value to Celtic. Sinclair has played for us in some of Europe’s biggest arenas over the past four seasons and his knowledge may be invaluable to the camp.
But it’s really tough to see him getting a chance to showcase those talents. Rightly or wrongly, the winger is so far out of the picture at Parkhead and you just can’t see Lennon trusting him in a game against one of our European opponents.
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