James Forest has been a crucial part of Scotland side Celtic who has won the Premier League 8 times in a row and 38 times in total.
The attacker has been named the PFA after beating three others, two from Rangers and another his teammate at Celtic.
Now 72 goals and 28 Scotland caps later, the winger has been named PFA Scotland’s Premiership player of the year.
Forrest has not only proven himself as one of Celtic’s most consistent goalscorers but over the course of the last nine seasons, the 27-year-old has turned into a regular match-winner when it matters most.
The Prestwick-born talent is Celtic’s new ‘big-game’ player. And today BBC Scotland runs through the numbers to explain why.
The best measure of a Celtic player’s big-game ability comes in Europe, where Celtic are tasked with competing against the highest quality of player from the very first qualifier right through to the group stages. Here, Forrest’s contributions have grown and grown.
This season the wide player picked up two goals and seven assists in 14 games for the Glasgow club. When we break that down to goals or assists per 90 minutes it gives us a figure of 0.54.
As the graph above shows, that figure is almost twice what the Scottish international averaged in a comparable European campaign last season which again was better than the season before and the season before that.
Aside from the 2014/15 season in which Forrest played just 75 minutes in Europe, the Celtic player has held a relatively consistent degree of game time, yet the amount of goals and assists the player picks up each season has steadily increased.
Forrest’s performances in Scottish football’s biggest games have also consistently improved over the past two or three seasons at Celtic.
He has 17 goals and 20 assists to his name this season, but what’s most important to note here is that eight of those goals and six of those assists came against teams that finished in the top half of this season’s Premiership.
Not only does this combined total of 14 goals and assists far exceed last season’s return against similar opponents six, but it’s also not inconceivable to imagine Forrest could add to that in the remaining games of the current league campaign.
Similarly, as Aberdeen fans can attest to and Hearts fans may fear next month, the Celtic forward seems to really thrive in the latter stages of Scottish football’s two cup competitions.
Despite having one more game to play, Forrest already has three goals and an assist in the latter stages of the Scottish and League Cup.
While there are many contenders for this season’s Player of the Year award, few can lay claim to the level of consistency that Forrest has shown across the season. Especially when it comes to showing up in the biggest games.
