Scott Brown is hugely underrated.

He is pish and we spunked all that money on a donkey . he was meant to be the new Steve g

 

He typifies everything that is wromg with scottish football. We regard physical, in your face players more than technical footballers hence why we have this * runniing about with the captains armband on.

 

watched this video of him he's never a celtic captain total 'heid the baw'

TalentNation - View Video

 

He's a Celtic Player so he's got my support like ever other celtic player (including Samaras & Donkey Murphy) If they dont play well in a certain match then i will grill them for a while but as long as they wear green and white then they'll have my backing :icon_mrgreen:

 

Keep saying it but no matter what Brown does, he will have the guys on these message boards that will always dislike him. I now ignore them as they can't admit when the player is playing well.

All I'll say on this matter is that we're in big trouble when we're without him like nearly the whole of last season (which quite remarkably people are blaming him for) and the spell he missed in this one. Some may say it's a coincidence but they're wrong. Brown prevents the opposition from playing a passing game, creating chances making our defenders look even worse than what they are. He came back for a couple of matches and both St Johnstone and Motherwell hardly got a sniff at our goal.

Nobody will score goals for Celtic from his DM position. Should have about the same return as the likes of Lambert many years ago as the bulk of his game is closing players down.

 

Good post

 

I wouldn't say Brown plays in the same position as Lennon either. It's a different formation. He certainly doesn't have the freedom to break forward either that Petrov or Burley had. I'd say he plays the Lambert role. Don't get me wrong. Lambert was the better player but this is a far better comparison. He was the man that let Burley break like Brown has for Ledley while closing down the breakaway attacks.

 

anyone who hasnt played the game at a decent level or isnt qualified underrates scott brown.

 

Good point. I bet you don't hear any of his team mates complaining about Brown's performances.

 

he's never missed when not playing...

 

3 things that have worked against Brown in past:

1) Idea that he's primarily a creative/attacking player.
2) Price tag (worked against him in terms of expectation at least)
3) Recklessness

Strange thing is, point 2 has for me worked FOR him in terms of team selection. He was a flag-ship, MoN era of richness style signing, is Scottish and has been appointed Captain to boot. Have managers been starting him off the back of this?

Because often to 60,000 odd supporters there seems to have been little else reason for his consistent selection. Not even the excuse of being any given managers "pet" favourite - 3 seperate gaffers have been desperate to squeeze Scott Brown into the side. But has his footballing ability justified this?

I suspect that point 1 has been particularly cruel to Brown - the Celtic support have been spoiled with fantastic attacking midfielders in the past so have maybe held Scott Brown up against the likes of Lubo, Petrov, Burley, Naka etc and we have expected a reasonably similar level of goal-scoring threat.

Neither is Brown a Lennon/Lambert type holding midfielder whos maturity and intelligence underpins economic passing, surgical precision in the tackle, and the ability to snuff the Worlds best players out of the big games.

The more you pore over the evidence the more damning it gets for Brown. If you're not an attacking midfielder and not a "defensive" midfielder (in the traditional sense of the term) then what are you?

I think what we've ended up with is a reasonably modern style of midfielder - the hustler. Not a "holding" midfielder like Lennon and Lambert - but defensive at hearts - and while passionate and energetic not quite box to box like Burley, as that has a real attacking expectation. Think of the importance of Darren Fletcher to Man United's side and I guess that's what we're approaching, and like Fletcher whose continued selection by Sir Alex Ferguson baffled much of Old Trafford, Brown has been held in equally high regard by Celtic managers without ever impressing the fans.

The reason I say it's a reasonably modern addition to the footballing world is traditionally "ball-winning" midfielders have been pretty reactionary. An attack comes in, you read the game, you smack a clever tackle (at the right time) and pass the ball to the proper footballer.

Brown (and Fletcher) are much more pro-active in that sense, and again in style with the modern game press much more than Lennon did nearly 10 years ago. So essentially a ball-winning midfielder but not in the way we're used to.

And it makes sense that in the biggest of games we found Scott Brown starting, as his pressing and industry could help stop the other team playing - and he does this pretty well without being pretty. My criticism (and benefit of having a 2 man midfield of Ledley and Ki) is that in the SPL, we are the team with the vast majority of possession. So the requirement for Brown is much less - as mentioned before in the final third his attacking play is pretty poor so he's almost like a spare part. I guess the argument would be, if you're going to get picked against AC Milan and Man Utd, then why the * not get picked against St Mirren?

And his best games in a Celtic shirt have been against the better sides, especially Moscow away springing to mind. I think he can be a really effective player for us in these bigger games.

But you can see why, in the *smaller* games, he fails to impress - with all our possession he simply doesn't score enough, or create enough. When we're not in Europe it ends up that 95% of the games we play, the situation isn't right for him.

So I think he's a really specialised player, that rightly so doesn't get respect against the wee-er teams, but maybe unfairly doesn't get the respect in the big ones.

 

As you can tell from length of reply - I'm up early and on edge. OF day!

 

That was a good post there mmmikey. Interesting read and I agree with the similarities to Fletcher although they play in different formats to their respective teams. Fletcher does have the lisence to get forward and grab the odd goal playing along with Scoles and Carrick or whoever. Our 4-2-4 set up is far from ideal.

Celtic have downsized so much since the MoN/WGS years that games against ICT and Dundee Utd at home are now anything but sure victories. This is why we need Brown in these games also. The chances that even the so called 'lesser' sides are creating against us with a midfield of Ki and Ledley are becoming more and more. They answer to me, is to simply change our shape to a 4-3-3/4-5-1. It works for Barcelona after all.

 

i think we did miss him when he was out,our midfield has been all over the place in the last 6 or so games

 

I think Fletcher has a similar license to get forward it's just he's better at attacking than Brown is and tends to pop up with some important goals.

I agree with your sentiment that we should switch at some stage to 4-3-3/4-5-1, Strachan used to go 4-5-1 in the CL. But we've got to have the confidence to change back to 4-4-2 or something similar when we're chasing goals, even withdrawing Brown. Nothing worse than having 65%+ possession and nothing happening up top.

 

I haven't read through the whole thread but in response to it's title, i would say the opposite. He is or was, in my opinion, hugely over rated. Not to mention over priced. He has been a huge disappointment based on the promise he showed at Hibs. I don't think there was a single Celtic fan who wasn't at least a little excited at the prospect of Brown joining us when he did, especially after all we heard about him supposedly having had made some sort of "Gentleman's" agreement with the other lot. How many of them will be sorry he didn't go there?

Says it all IMO.

How many holes has he dug us out of? How many crucial goals has he scored? How many times has he made a significant impact and turned a game on it's head in a POSITIVE way?

He has been more of a liability in all honesty.

Never a Celtic Captain.

Of course that is only my opinion.

 

He's not in the team for this.

 

An example of where I don't agree with Fletcher having a similar license to Broon is from corners. Brown is marking at the half way line where Fletcher is in the box. As I said above as well, he has either Scoles and Carrick or Anderson playing behind him at times. Brown has only Ledley or Ki. Big difference.

I also find that we don't get that 65% when Brown isn't in the team doing his pressing game. Where I can't be sure of this stat, I can be sure of the amount of opportunities opposing sides get through his absence.

 

Is that the only part you could pick fault with?

Pretty much proves my point.

Let's put it another way, how many crucial goals has he been instrumental in creating?

What IS he in the team for, by the way?

 

i dont know tbh with him.doesnt really do much other than do dumb * tackles