Dundee United defender Jarek Fojut insists he has nothing to prove to Celtic when he lines up against them in the League Cup final.
The giant Pole was due to join the Hoops three years ago and signed a pre-contract with them while at Slask Wroclaw in his homeland.
However, then Parkhead manager Neil Lennon pulled the plug on the deal after Fojut suffered cruciate knee ligamentdamage while still playing for Slask.
He eventually ended up at Tannadice last summer after a stopover in Norway with Tromso and has been a key man for theTangerines in their march to the final.
Fojut insists he doesn’t look back on what was a difficult time for him and think about what might have been. Instead, he is counting his blessings as he targets silverware with the Tannadice men.
“It doesn’t matter what happened before,” he said.“I have cut the past. I am now in the exact position I want to be in, which is just a few days away from a cup final with Dundee United.
“Every football player would want to be in this position, looking ahead to such a big game. So I am really happy that I am here and pleased with how my career has gone.
“It was a disappointment at the time but I don’t think about it now,” said Fojut.“At that point I had just won the league with myPolish team and was celebrating with my wedding (to wife Karolina) a few days after it happened.
“I don’t know how my mood was at the time.You would need to ask my wife but I hope I was OK! It happens not to many players but ithappens. As I said, it doesn’t matter now.
“Even if that hadn’thappened I would still be very hungry to win thecup against Celtic and doingeverything it takes to winit.”
On the theme of looking forward not back, Fojut played down the prospect of there being a hangover at Hampden from the incident-packed Scottish Cupquarter-final between the clubs last weekend.
“We are looking to lift the cup and it doesn’t matter what has happened before with the other match,” he added.
“This will be a different game than it was at Parkhead when we lost 6-1, or the one in December at Tannadice that we won 2-1 or the cup-tie at the weekend that we drew 1-1.
“This will be different because it’s a final and, really, anything can happen on the day. We will just focus on ourselves not anything else.
“It has been easy to move on from that. I don’t get paid for analysing games. The coaching staff talk about what has happened and, as a player, I take it game by game.
“My wish is that weall have our best matches on Sunday because I feelwe will have to do that towin.”
It was a goal from Fojut that really set United on their way in this tournament.
He bulleted home a header in the last minuteof the Dundee derby atTannadice on September24 to send United throughto the quarter-finals.
With fellow central defender Callum Morris chipping in with another headed goal the equaliser against Aberdeen in the semi-final the men at the back have been helping out the frontmen.
However, there is only one thing above all that matters to Fojut going into Sunday and that is keeping the door shut at the other end.
“If you look at our matches, if we don’t concede we always win,” claimed Fojut.“That’s because we have such a strong team goingforward. So it is important for us not to concede.
“We have scored a few goals from set-pieces so it’s good to see that we defenders can take some pressure away from the attackers.
“But the first job is defending so if I can get a clean sheet I would behappier than scoring a goal.
“I want it to be our strikers who have lots of confidence and score as many as they can.”