AS you will recall, last month's Bet Fred Cup final victory against Aberdeen was Celtic's 100th trophy and Brendan Rodgers' first. But it should also have meant a maiden major medal to put on Scott Sinclair's mantlepiece.

Like his old Chelsea youth team gaffer, the closest Sinclair had ever come to lifting a major honour before this season was the small matter of an £100m promotion play-off victory with Swansea City against Reading.

But while his gaffer was able to get that monkey off his back, fate meant that Sinclair was unable to participate in any meaningful sense to his club's victory. Despite featuring in all three of the previous rounds of the competition, the Englishman was hobbling around with a hamstring problem as they conducted that lap of honour around the national stadium.

Read more: Celtic's Scott Sinclair: I can't wait for Ibrox on Hogmanay... I love feeling of being hated

All that personal misfortune, though, only makes him more determined to complete the other two components of a treble in his first season in the Scottish game. On the evidence of Tuesday night, when he scored the winning goal against Partick Thistle on his first start following his five-match injury lay off, this is not just idle talk.

“It feels great to be back in the swing of things," said Sinclair. "I was out for three weeks but it felt a lot longer. The run of games we have had meant that I missed a lot of games.

“It was heartbreaking to miss the cup final because I hadn’t been involved in a final for so long," he added. "The last one was the play-off final for Swansea when we won promotion. And that wasn’t even really silverware as such ... so it was hard not being involved.

"Hopefully I can look forward now and we can get to another one – but I was gutted. I did feel part of the celebrations after the final and I did feel involved, as I’d played in all the games leading up to it. But it wasn't the same as playing.

Read more: Celtic's Scott Sinclair: I can't wait for Ibrox on Hogmanay... I love feeling of being hated

“Does it make me more determined to go and win the other two trophies? Definitely. For me and all the boys, we want all the silverware we can get. We want to win as much as we win."

Sinclair's goal on Tuesday night, courtesy of the same kind of late lateral run and clever delivery from Liam Henderson which Teddy Sheringham used to use to his advantage, moved him onto 10 league goals for the season, enough for parity with Ross County's Liam Boyce at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership scoring lists.

His manager also chided him for not having number eleven for the season shortly afterwards, Tomas Cerny saving well with his feet when the winger benefited from the break of the ball in the Partick midfield.

Sinclair, the scorer of 27 goals in that promotion season with Swansea, has re-found his scoring touch this year and the only ones likely to be outdoing him in the running for golden boot in 2016-17 seem likely to be team-mates like Moussa Dembele or Leigh Griffiths.

“I haven’t really looked too deeply at the top scorers," said Sinclair. "I just make sure I do my job and that is to score and create goals. If I am doing that, then I am happy. But it’s nice to be back and to get a goal was great. Now hopefully I can keep building."

Read more: Celtic's Scott Sinclair: I can't wait for Ibrox on Hogmanay... I love feeling of being hated

Sinclair missed five matches in all due to the muscle strain. While his game-changing pace is the one thing Celtic have no real substitute for - and his running from a wide area is a huge benefit to the team for big matches such as the upcoming Old Firm match at Ibrox - it is nonetheless true that the Parkhead side didn't really seem to miss him too much.

The only one of the matches which he missed which didn't result in a Celtic victory was the 1-1 Champions League draw at his old stomping ground of the Etihad, and it really should have gone on the balance of chances created.

The club are 21 domestic matches in all unbeaten, in the midst of a 14-match winning run, and should they win at Ibrox they may well have the kind of 17-point lead (or indeed better) by Christmas which is unheard of in the history of Scottish football. The current record margin of victory in the Scottish top flight is the 29 points which the Parkhead club took the title from Motherwell in 2013-14. Targets like that are there to be aimed at, and Sinclair admitted that going unbeaten this season is in the back of the players' minds.

“The run is great," said Sinclair. "It was a little bit of a grind against Partick. We didn’t really play as well as we normally do. But we will look at all the negatives and positives and take it game by game.

“Is it [going unbeaten] in the back of our minds?" he added. "It’s always going to be there but hopefully we can keep going and doing what we are just now – winning games. That’s all we can do. The manager has made changes and freshened things up, and we have the squad to do that."

With Sinclair's first-ever winter break, and a trip to Dubai, on the horizon as soon as the final whistles sounds, expect Celtic to be back to full strength and firing on all cylinders by the time Hogmanay comes along.