The Scotsman

Sinclair thinks Celtic are the only ones who can stop run

● After setting a new record with 63-game unbeaten sequence, striker says a drop in their own standards is all that can halt it

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Celtic’s unbeaten domestic run will eventually come to an end. When it does, the likelihood is that they will have contribute­d to their own downfall, because when they are playing at their best – or even anywhere near their best – there is not a team in the land who can better them.

It is a fact acknowledg­ed by the players, the manager, the fans and their rivals, with St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright pointing to the gulf in finances and in class and admitting that there is not one member of his team who could force their way into the Celtic starting line-up. Possibly not even into the squad.

Yet, his men were the last Scottish team to beat the Parkhead

CELTIC

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Sinclair 28, Dembele 72, Anderson og 75, Ntcham 89 side, back in May 2016. Under different management back then, in the shape of the soon to be ousted Ronny Deila, Celtic have been an immovable force since Brendan Rodgers assumed control, one game into their now 63-game dominant run. And it is hard to see how that superiorit­y can be dented without Celtic weighing in and somehow shooting themselves in the foot.

“Is the only thing that can stop us ourselves?” pondered Scott Sinclair, last season’s player of the year. “That’s it because when you look what we’ve achieved it’s down to us.”

A key player to the invincible campaign, Sinclair has not hit the same heights this term but, such is their strength in depth, the Glasgow outfit continue to steamrolle­r their way through the domestic challenges placed before them. Already into the first major cup final of the season and with a 75 per cent win rate in the Premiershi­p, two of the three draws could be explained away as Champions League hangovers as they continue

0 Moussa Dembele congratula­tes Scott Sinclair on his opening goal. to strive for improvemen­t on foreign soil.

“We need to keep improving, not get complacent and keep moving in the right direction,” warned Sinclair, underlinin­g the profession­alism that has underpinne­d their success. “It is down to us taking every game as it comes. That’s what we’ve done. We really have just looked at things game by game. We have beaten the record now so we want to go on and keep breaking our own record.”

The 62-game record was already Celtic’s but, in going at least one better, this group of players have ensured it is their names now writ large in the history books, usurping Willie Maley’s team of 1915-17.

Fielding an unchanged side fo the first time this season, Rod ers had seen his men grab con trol of proceeding­s, with th likes of Stuart Armstrong, Kie an Tierney, James Forrest an Sinclair all keen to get forwar in support of Moussa Dembel and bolster the attacking threa That earned them a corner an from Armstrong’s delivery Sin clair side-footed it past Zande Clark in the home goal.

After that, against a side wh have struggled to score in recen weeks – this defeat makes it si matches without a goal – it wa simply a matter of how one-sid ed the scoreline would be as the created history.

“It’s great and the run jus shows the team spirit, the har work we have put in and th mentality we have,” said Sin clair. “I have loved it, playin every week and scoring goals.

In the 71st minute, Celtic mad it two and it was the kind o sweeping team goal that sum up the strength of a side, wher every player is comfortabl­e o the ball, has a great workrat and understand­ing and is con fident in everyone else’s ability

Dembele got things going wit a ball out to Tierney. Armstron made an overlappin­g run an when he was played in by th

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