‘It’s like when a striker is asked how it feels to score. You don’t get that feeling in any other aspect of life’

NEIL LENNON felt that the save from Marco Parolo was more impressive. Truth is, so does Fraser Forster. But the Celtic goalkeeper’s TV moment when he dived to push away a rasping Danilo Cataldi volley and preserve an historic Celtic Park Europa League win against Lazio last month offered more than just an impressive clip for any highlights package.

It was a save of affirmation. It was a save that validated Forster’s choice to return to Glasgow for a second spell with Celtic and a save, given the emotion attached to it, that has placed it up there among the very best of the goalkeeper’s career. There was 18 months of pain firmly behind it and redemption in the moment.

“I actually thought the save before that was the better save [from Parolo],” said the Englishman. “For me, given the circumstances and the timing in the game, it was pretty much the last kick of the ball, everything around it made it a bigger save than it was.

“When you chat about appreciating playing again and whatever, that moment is probably up there with the best in my career. Off the back of the previous 18 months, it was an actual moment where you are like, ‘That’s why you play football.’

“That moment for me was that. Given the 18 moths before, stuff I’d had to deal with, stuff

I’d been through, that was probably the first moment when I was like, ‘That’s why I’m here, that’s what I’ve missed’.

“It’s impossible to say how good that feeling is. Just adrenalin, relief, a feeling you are back. It’s hard to describe how it is. It’s like when a striker is asked how it feels to score. You don’t get that feeling in any other aspect of life. To have that feeling back was something very special. Probably, if I could pick one feeling out of my whole career, that would be the moment I appreciate the most.

“I never lost that belief in myself that I was a good keeper because I knew that deep down but you need to be able to go out and show people that you are still a good keeper.”

Forster was reluctant to look beyond the immediacy of his loan deal with Celtic. The keeper will see out the season with Lennon’s side but what comes next will largely be out of his hands. Contracted to

Southampton until 2022, it is likely that finances would prevent any permanent move, although that picture would become substantially more blurred were Southampton to find themselves relegated this summer.

For now, though, being back in amongst it is enough for Forster. There was time for reflection over the last 10 days as international football took precedence – Forster still has not given up on forcing his way back into the England set-up ahead of the European Championships – and the appreciation of being able to play and compete for silverware has whet his appetite for an intense run of games that lies ahead over the coming six weeks.

“Last year is the first year that I have ever had like that in football,” he said. “I didn’t take it for granted but when you go from playing to not playing you don’t have a game to look forward to, you are training but you don’t have that focus of who you are playing at the weekend. It is great to have that feeling back and that drive. I am making the most of it and enjoying every minute.

“You look at what the lads have achieved in the last few years and it has been fantastic. Very few players actually get to compete and go out to win stuff so to come up here and do that, it would be something special. That is the dream.

“It is one of the big things up here; the demand on you. The pressure on you to win. You do miss that when you go down South because it is a different team and a different league and the goals are different. Here you are expected to win every game and you need to do that if you want to win trophies and league. It is a great pressure that makes you strive to be better