WE’RE NOT IN TOP GEAR YET
FROM BACK PAGE Invincibles season of 2016-17. Celtic are back within striking distance of top spot a month after fears they might face an 11-point deficit after losing two games due to Boli Bolingoli’s Covid breach.
They were held at Killie in August but have five domestic wins on the spin since while rivals Rangers have spilled points at Livingston and Hibs.
Neil Lennon’s men are now just a point behind Gers with a game in hand and Brown believes there is much more to come.
He said: “I don’t think we’ve hit top gear yet. Sometimes you have to grind these games out and just get the results.
“You don’t worry about the performances at the end of the season – not if you’ve won the league.
“It’s all about points on the board obviously. But we want to play better.
“We want to ensure we control games from start to finish a lot better. We don’t want to be defending a 3-2 lead for the last 15 minutes every week.”
Brown insists Celtic refused to panic when Rangers had the chance to open up a big lead.
He added: “We don’t get too excited, don’t get too emotional.
“We focus on who we’re playing. That’s the big thing, not getting carried away with our form.
“If we keep winning games all we know is we’ll keep a smile on everyone’s faces. We aim to do that for as long as we possibly can. We don’t worry about anyone else.
“We aim to get success here every year and push the boundaries all the time. The manager has brought in a lot of players and there have been changes in the team and formation. So it’s been great that we’ve been able to keep winning matches at the same time.”
Celtic were made to sweat in the 3-2 defeat of Livingston but Brown insists a winning mentality is hard-wired at Parkhead.
He said: “We’re delighted to be back up there. There was nothing we could do about the two games we missed as a team. But we’ve managed to win them, beating St Mirren in a hard game – and getting another good result at the weekend against Livingston.
“I think there’s a lot of pressure on us all the time. People just expect us to win every single game. But it’s always hard work and we’ve done extremely well, especially against Livingston there.
“It’s about the fighting spirit of these lads. We never give up, we always try. And we try to improve week by week because the manager wants that from us.”
Brown will park the Premiership push for a few days as he insists the Celtic squad are determined to savour another European adventure this season.
The pain of being dumped from the Champions League by Ferencvaros remains but the captain wants a repeat of last term’s run in the Europa League when they toppled Lazio on the way to topping their group.
Celts face Riga in Latvia on Thursday and Brown said: “The Champions League wasn’t to be for us this year but we had a great run in the Europa last year.
“Here’s hoping we can get another good group and get out of it again.
“But the main thing is getting into the groups in the first place.
“We want to be in Europe. We have a huge game on Thursday we need to win. If we get through we have another one to deal with but we want to be there.
“The disappointment of the Champions League takes time to shake off, definitely. But you can’t let it get into your mind.
“It was a few weeks ago now and we have a long season ahead of us.
“We’re all devastated not to do it but the Europa League is the main thing for us now as a club.”