Scott Brown

If Brown scored goals at CL level he would be playing for Real Madrid.

 

Must admit, have had time to think and maybe I'm being quite harsh on blaming Brown for our entire midfield woes at CL level, I was just thinking of him as the main man though and passing most of the blame on him. I suppose put him with Ledley and Wanyama now in a 3 man midfield and it'd certainly compete well with the likes of Gladbach at least.

Guys like Bitton and McGregor though are barely Europa League level, while Armstrong is sort of not quite there yet but has progressed well this season.

 

@Bob Marley you are as big a football fan as the Pope is a Protestant. Shut up

 

Hi mate. I'm a massive football fan, the Pope is Catholic I believe and no I won't shut up.

 

@Bob Marley

You answered his (deco) insult but missed my post debating your opinion...

Any chance of a reply?

 

He's got you on ignore.

 

Never once did I mention anything about goals, I'm aware of the role Brown plays doesn't require him to add goals to his game. I'm more worried about controlling the midfield and we failed to do that in the Gladbach games in particular. As I said a few posts ago maybe I'm being harsh in singling out Brown but I feel our midfield as a whole needs a massive upgrade to reach CL level. It's a long way off what it was a few years ago when we had Ledley and Wanyama in there.

 

Said it before but whilst the 91% (or whatever it was) pass completion is impressive, at first glance, I'd be interested to see how many of Brown's passes were forward passes. If 99% of them were 10/15 yards sideways passes, or passes back to the defence then suddenly it isn't so impressive.

 

Its extremely impressive at that level regardless, he was exceptional in most of the CL games.

 

It's impressive, but like I said if the vast majority of his passes were sideways or backwards, and I'd imagine they were, then it isn't as spectacular.

 

I don't know. For someone not able to pass the ball five yards I think it's pretty spectacular.

I think it's an incredible stat considering the level of the opposition we were against. We were very impressive on the ball this season in the CL, remember being shocked at how much possession we kept at home to Barca, and we created goals home and away to City and away to Monchengladbach with positive performances. Brown was a catalyst in those performances.

He obviously played backwards and sideways at times but I wouldn say any more than your average midfielder. No one in Europe will have a pass rate as good as that if they try and play forward every time.

 

Brown kept Ledley out of the team at times. I have to say I think Ledley was a good player for Celtic but he seems to very overrated by a lot of people. He wasn't as good as Brown and still isn't.

 

Shhhhhhh, too sensible.

 

Do you still think he's a poor passer of the ball?

 

I know you're not asking me, but I don't think he's a very good passer of the ball. Is he capable of some top class passes? Yes. Definitely.

But he's also guilty of some very sloppy passes. For me he will always be, first and foremost, a warrior of a midfielder. The technical side of his game has been and still is his biggest weakness.

 

Distinctively average, passing isn't and has never been Browns forte.

It's been 100% better this season which is great to see, but I still wouldn't class his passing as anything above average to good.

 

I think his biggest weakness is creativity, he doesn't create and score a lot of goals but like I said earlier if he did he would be at one of Europes top teams.

I think he's a good passer of the ball, the stats in the CL are proof of it. Sideways backwards or * ways they are all passes and to complete that many successfully against that level of opposition is some going.

 

Probably agree with that.

I think the slopiness with him probably comes into play when we are playing against teams with every man behind the ball and we need to unlock tight defences. Like I've said before creativity isn't his biggest strength and that's where he probably shows a weakness. It's why you need more positive guys like Rogic and Armstrong in with him who you know are going to drive forward, get goals and create.

I think Brown really shines when we are up against it or even against opposition that are similar in strength to ourselves. Positionally I think he's outstanding and the interception stats from this years CL show that (against three top passing sides). I am actually even more impressed with his interceptions than the passing statistics.

Against teams like that as well we need to keep the ball for as long as we can, and I felt we were quite good at that this season in Europe, we definitely showed signs of improvement. We had something like 36% possession at home to Barca, huge improvement on what we would have had in previous years. That was partially due to Brown showing for the ball time and time again and keeping it more times than not - another thing I love about him, he never hides. Even when he is having a stinker he always shows for the ball.

 

I wish he did. I'm in no fit state to reply to anyone right now. I started this message at 3 a.m. Ffs