Ronny happy if Brown goes steaming in...

NOBODY understands the chemistry and psychology behind a right good bevvy session like the Scandinavians. With a capacity and appetite that makes us Scots look like amateurs, these Nordic types are clearly channelling their inner Viking when they go on the skite. Which perhaps explains Ronny Deila’s attitude of indulgence towards Celtic captain Scott Brown (below), famously pictured slumped on a pavement, shovelling pizza into his gub. It has taken six months for Deila to open up on the subject and, now that he’s spoken, it’s clear that his relaxed approach doesn’t quite veer all the way to indifference; he cares too much about his skipper and the reputation of the club to actually start encouraging ‘Broony’ to self-harm through alcohol. But his recognition that Brown works under extreme pressure and occasionally ‘needs’ to blow off steam in a manner as old as fermentation … that’s part of the manager’s job. As long as the captain keeps winning him games, Deila will indulge almost anything. You may disagree with him. Many of us feel that a certain compatriot of Deila’s, a footballer by the name of Erik Pedersen, was right all those years ago when he lambasted the Scots as ‘a bunch of boozy losers.’ Brown gets away with any binges because he’s got a Bryan Robson-esque physiology, able to recover and train harder than anyone the next day. The worry, as Deila acknowledges, is in the example he sets. As long as his teammates, especially the young and more impressionable ones, don’t think they are capable of keeping up with a guy who, at a bar or on the field, could put the Norse god of thunder on his backside.