Scott Brown

LectersLuncheon · Mar 28, 2019

The last fixture he had probably his worst ever performance against der hun. It was truly tragic to watch.

But if the man is anything to go by, and as past examples have proven, the boy comes back like a man possessed.

Fully expect him to boss the * out of this fixture. (provided we dont go with some bizarre formation that impedes him)

Get * intae them broony!!!

Notorious · Mar 28, 2019

Media Conference

Notorious · Mar 28, 2019

There was Rangers midfielder Scott Arfield doing a mock ‘Broony’. There was Andy Halliday celebrating after driving into a slide tackle early on in December’s Ibrox meeting that Rangers emerged victorious from. And that was before the end of match celebrations. Celebrations that had three weeks to echo like a scornful tinnitus as Celtic brought down a limp curtain on their year.

And yet Celtic captain Scott Brown, who came in for a torrent of personal criticism after the 1-0 defeat to Rangers that day, has insisted that Sunday’s game is not lent an additional edge by the manner in which Steven Gerrard’s side savoured their win over Celtic going into the winter break.

It is part and parcel of football,” said Brown. “They celebrated and we just had to continue. We went away to Dubai and had a mini pre-season and since then we are undefeated. I think for us it is about focusing on us and not worrying about anything or anyone else. Nothing annoys me anymore. I’ve seen it all.

“I didn’t even know it happened at the time, to be fair. You win games and people celebrate. It is an emotional day and people will always want to win. More times than not we have won and played great football but that was one in 13 games that we were beaten. There have been some good stats for us in these games and hopefully there are few more still to come from these games for us.”

As for the criticism that was aimed squarely at the door of Brown himself following a particularly turgid display, he was fairly philosophical; “I’m always going to get it more than most. I’ve retired again, I’m *, all the normal stuff. I just keep soldiering on, we’ve some great players here. It’s not about myself, it’s not about individuals, this is about a team that’s going places. We’re ten points clear now but we need to make sure we perform on Sunday. We just need to make sure we turn up and play well, then we’ll see what happens after the game.”

Brown himself has been caught up in a few of those emotional celebrations himself. The midfielder netted a last gasp winner at Rugby Park last month before sealing Celtic’s progression into the semi-finals of the William Hill Scottish Cup with a goal against Hibs at Easter Road the weekend after Brendan Rodgers has left the club. “I’m a goalscoring midfielder,” joked the 33-year-old. “I’m one to watch…”

There will be chuckles around Celtic Park on Sunday should the Parkhead side emerge triumphant at Rangers’ expense from the third meeting between the teams this season. With a ten point lead established at the top of the table, only a win for the Ibrox side would edge open the door to the possibility of a dramatic climax to the season. The recent evidence doesn’t auger well on that regard given the indifferent form of Gerrard’s side and it will be interesting how they set up on Sunday.

Celtic claimed the first win of the season when the teams met in September in a game in which Rangers camped in and hoped to constrict their hosts, but given their current league situation a more open approach would appear necessary this weekend.

“They have to come for us,” acknowledged Brown. “We know we can play through them and get through the lines and if we do that then we will create chances and we have great players who can score goals from any angles, as we seen before when we went down to ten men. They thought they had their chance[ last March at Ibrox when Celtic won 3-2] but we had a great structure and a great shape and we managed to control the game from that.

“They will come for us but we know how to play. We have a structure that has worked in the past before. We had that structure that has worked in the past before under Brendan that we are still holding on to and we are still playing with it and Neil is adding things to it.”

Celtic’s injury issues are beginning to abate after a spell in which they were particularly weakened in the middle of the park. Tom Rogic and Olivier Ntcham are believed to have trained this week while Leigh Griffiths is set to be gradually be brought back into the squad after a four-month absence while he dealt with personal issues. Timothy Weah and Oliver Burke have made contributions to Celtic since the January break following their introduction while Odsonne Edouard is fit for the game, having missed the last game between the sides in December.

The differing complexion of Celtic’s squad has not been lost on Brown.

“We had a few injuries, young Mikey [Johnstone] played up front whereas he loves to play out wide. He’s not exactly a target man for us but he put in a great shift and did as well as he could up there. It was one of those days when we didn’t have a lot of bodies back but now we’re starting to get players back from injury, especially the long-term ones. So the squad’s looking good again. We have a nice cushion but there’s still a lot of points to be played for. We need to go in and make sure we win on Sunday.”