James Forrest acknowledged the virtues of Celtic’s recent Betfred Cup final win over Rangers but minimised its possible effect on Sunday’s Old Firm clash.
The Hoops winger insists the 1-0 win over the Light Blues at Hampden Park earlier in the month revealed another side to the champions, who go into the last Ladbrokes Premiership fixture of 2019 at Parkhead five points clear of their Ibrox rivals albeit having played a game more.
Hampden, however, is still fresh on the mind.
Three minutes after French defender Christopher Jullien opened the scoring for the Hoops against the run of play in the second half, the champions were reduced to 10 men when teenage defender Jeremie Frimpong was sent off before goalkeeper Fraser Forster saved Alfredo Morelos’ penalty.
Neil Lennon’s side held out for their 10th successive trophy win.
Forrest, who scored his 14th goal of the season in the 2-1 win over St Mirren on Boxing Day, said: “After the cup final everyone was buzzing and felt really good about ourselves.
“When we play well and win, it is obviously good but sometimes you have an off day but still win, you have that winning mentality, you find ways to win.
“That is really good that we have that side to the game as well
“If you play in a cup final you would rather play well and win but at the end of the day when you manage to get over the line and win, that’s all that matters.
“But apart from the cup final, I don’t think that will mean much.
“This is a different game. We are at home.
“It is going to be a difficult game but we are looking forward to it.
“They are always games you look forward to, obviously the fans and players look forward to it, the atmosphere is going to be unbelievable.
“Just hopefully we can give our fans something to shout about.
“We are going to have to play at our best to get three points.”
Celtic have won 11 in a row in the league, while qualifying for the last-32 of the Europa League where they will play FC Copenhagen next year and the Scotland international admits: “The confidence is so high among the players and staff, the club as a whole.”
He said: “Obviously the league has been really good up until now but we are only halfway through the season and the manager and staff always want us to improve and get better.
“We need to come out on Sunday with a good performance and hopefully get a good result.”
