Ex-Celtic, Man City, Chelsea and Aston Villa winger set to rejoin Bristol Rovers

Bristol Rovers are reportedly closing in on the signing of former winger Scott Sinclair, who left the club 17-years ago to join Chelsea.

The 33-year-old began his career ater coming through their academy system as a nine-year-old, becoming the clubs second-youngest player at 15-years-old. He only made two appearances for Rovers and departed for Chelsea, before going on to have a successful career in the Premier League, the Championship and the Scottish Premiership.

Sinclair is a free agent after leaving his last club Preston North End, and had been training with one of his former clubs Chelsea to get his fitness up. He spent five years as a player at Stamford Bridge after the Blues paid an initial £200,000 following a Football League tribunal to decide how much Rovers would get.

Bristol Live have reported that Sinclair was the free agent that manager Joey Barton was speaking to last month as he looked to strengthen his squad even further after ten summer arrivals. Talks had went quiet and Barton had almost accepted things wouldn't happen but in a dramatic turn of events, Sinclair now looks to be closing in on a return to the Memorial Stadium.

They say that Sinclair has been training with Rovers for the last week to assess the winger's fitness ahead of any possible move. Sinclair is said to have been 'excellent' which has put to bed any fears or doubts about signing the player Sinclair was born in Bath and is said to still has a property there which would make a return to Rovers a straight-forward move.

In a playing career that began in 2004, Sinclair made two appearances for the Gas after being given an opportunity by Ian Atkins. He joined Chelsea who had just come off winning the Premier League title under Jose Mourinho. Sinclair struggled for game time there and only made 14 appearances cross the five seasons he had there. He was loaned out to six different loan clubs; Plymouth Argyle, Queens Park Rangers, Charlton Athletic, Crystal Palace and Birmingham City in the Championship, before joining Wigan Athletic of the Premier League on loan.

It was after leaving Chelsea permanently and joining former Blues academy coach Brendan Rodgers at Swansea City that he found his form. He scored 27 goals in 50 appearances as he helped the Welsh club to promotion as they beat Reading. Sinclair played all of their matches and scored eight goals in 40 appearances as the Swans stayed up. His performances didn't go amiss and he was signed by Manchester City, who had won their first Premier League title and he went on to make 15 appearances in his first season. He had loan spells shortly after with West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa, later ending up signing for Villa on a permanent basis.

He reunited with Brendan Rodgers at Celtic and had his most successful spell as a player, playing three-and-a-half seasons at Celtic Park, scoring 62 goals and getting 167 assists. He ended up winning three Scottish Premierships, Scottish Cup's and Scottish League Cup's.

Sinclair returned to England to join Preston in 2020 and ended up scoring 14 goals in 85 games for the Lilywhites, but was not kept on after Ryan Lowe had made a decision to freshen up his squad.

A move to Rovers now seems on the cards in what would be Sinclair's first taste of League One football having played for Rovers in the fourth tier when he began his career.