Sinclair hails veteran’s impact and Paradise crowd

Scott Sinclair has hailed the impact Ivorian defender Kolo Toure is having in the Celtic dressing room.

The 27-year-old winger was a former team-mate of Toure’s at Manchester City, and have linked up once again at Paradise.

Both have also been managed by the current Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers, who looks to have got Sinclair back to the form he showed during his time at Swansea.

Speaking to the Herald Scotland about Toure, he said:

I’m not surprised Kolo has become such a big player for us because I have played with him at City and I know he has quality. He showed that again in the first leg.

He has a good personality too. He has played at some big clubs in his career so he can share that influence with the young players in the team and they can learn from him.

Toure has a wealth of experience under his belt at 35-years-old, and the two-time Premier league winner will look to guide Celtic to their sixth league title in a row and European progress this season using that experience.

After netting his third Celtic goal in a win over St Johnstone yesterday, Sinclair also reflected on Wednesday’s win over Hapoel Be’er Sheva, and in particular the atmosphere on the night.

Everybody keeps telling me about the atmosphere created by the Celtic fans but now I’m going through it for myself and realising how good it is. Hopefully we can get through and have more of these nights. I haven’t experienced anything like the other night before.

When we walked out they made so much noise and then they were singing for the whole game. It spurs us on and when we did concede the two goals they kept right behind us, clapping and cheering us on.

Sinclair will look to continue his impressive goal scoring form on Tuesday and bag his fourth goal in the Celtic jersey since signing from Aston Villa a fortnight ago.

Celtic will bag at least £20 million if they overcome Hapoel Be’er Sheva in their second leg play-off tie in the Champions League.