James Forrest hopes Celtic’s victory over Aberdeen gets them back on track

James Forrest believes Sunday’s 3-1 home win over ten-man Aberdeen will get Celtic back on track after it gave Wilfried Nancy his first victory as Hoops boss.

The Frenchman took over from interim management team of former manager Martin O’Neill and ex-player Shaun Maloney and promptly had the Parkhead club in turmoil by losing his first four games to Hearts, Roma, St Mirren and Dundee United, with the former Columbus Crew boss under enormous pressure.

Midfielder Benjamin Nygren gave the hosts the lead before Dons defender Dylan Lobban was sent off at the end of the first half for fouling Daizen Maeda.

Celtic were on top but Aberdeen substitute Kenan Bilalovic levelled in the 74th minute, however, late goals from Kieran Tierney and Forrest moved the Hoops to within six points of William Hill Premiership leaders Hearts with a game in hand.

The 34-year-old attacker reflected on the drama and negativity of the past couple of weeks as he looked forward with optimism.

“It’s not happened to a lot of us before so it’s a new experience,” said Forrest, whose goal meant he has netted in 17 consecutive seasons for Celtic since his scoring debut against Motherwell on May 1, 2010.

“I can only talk about the changing room and the players, everyone’s together and I think you’ve seen that.

“We could have easily drawn that game but we showed that we’re all together and that’s the main thing.

“This is a start to hopefully push on and keep picking up more victories.

“I’ve been here for so long, I’ve had so much success, so many good moments.

“I’d say there’s maybe been nothing really like the last couple of weeks.

“I’d say the kind of (unsuccessful) 10-in-a-row season, but then obviously that was Covid and the fans weren’t in the ground so there was something different about that one.

“Obviously, we’ve had a couple of different managers as well but that just shows that we all need to stay together and that’s what we have done the last couple of weeks.

“Hopefully, we can just go (one) game at a time, build back up the confidence.

“We could have scored six or seven goals but we kept going and we managed to get the win in the end.

“We need to give the fans something to cheer about and get behind us.

“I think with the performance, we can all come together and, as I said, just keep picking up more games and more performances like Sunday.”

Forrest left it to the last seconds of the previous league campaign to score when his goal gave Celtic a 1-1 draw at home to St Mirren and his added-time strike against the Dons sealed all three points.

He said: “It was good just the way it happened last season, but I would much rather get it done earlier in the season and help the team out.

“It’s good to realise once you’re older and your mates and people in the club tell you about records, it’s really good.

“It’s an added bonus of playing with such a great club for so long.”