Alan Hutton thinks James Forrest will travel with the Celtic squad for Sunday's Scottish League Cup final against Hibernian. 

The lowdown

Celtic travel to Hampden Park to battle Shaun Maloney's Hibs for the first silverware of the season.

Forrest secured their place in the final with a 73rd-minute strike against St Johnstone in the last four, having come off the bench.

Now he's one of a trio of Hoops players hoping to prove their fitness in time to feature in the showpiece, along with Kyogo Furuhashi and Mikey Johnston.

Ange Postecoglou said in his pre-match press conference that he would use Saturday's training session at Lennoxtown to make an assessment.

The latest

BBC Sport pundit Hutton thinks that, regardless of the results of that fitness test, Forrest will be part of the group that heads to Edinburgh.

Even if he can't contribute on the pitch, he says, his presence will still be valuable.

"Forrest has been there, done it, bought the t-shirt," he told Football Insider. "He's got a pocket full of medals.

"You do need that big-game experience. He'll be there, he will probably travel with the squad and he can keep the squad going."

The verdict

Hutton is certainly right about Forrest's track record: the winger has won a whopping 20 trophies at Celtic. Nine of those are league titles, but 11 are cups, indicating that he knows what it takes to prevail in an one-off, winner-takes-all contest.

And beyond that, former team-mate Mohamed Elyounoussi says the 'amazing' Forrest is 'a brilliant boy off the pitch as well'.

It would be a blow if he couldn't play, but in Liel Abada, who has notched a respectable 11 goal contributions in his first season at Celtic, Postecoglou can call upon an able replacement, and having Forrest around the squad could certainly help the likes of the Israel international shine.

In other news, Hutton also dropped this intriguing claim on Albian Ajeti.