YOU’VE GOT NO CHANCE
Brown dismisses Rangers and says Hibs are best of the rest
SCOTT BROWN has written off rangers’ chances of spoiling Celtic’s title party by insisting that they are not even the second-best team in Scotland.
Brendan rodgers’ Double Treble-chasing side can clinch a seventh straight league flag by beating their great rivals at Celtic Park on Sunday.
Parkhead skipper Brown, extra eager to take the chance because the SPFL went out of their way to avoid just this situation, believes rangers will
be fired up to prove themselves following their 4-0 Hampden hammering by Celtic in the recent Scottish Cup semi-finals — and because they are still in a scrap to secure the runnersup spot ahead of Aberdeen and Hibernian. But the former Scotland midfielder, coming off the back of a sobering weekend loss at Easter Road, doesn’t believe Graeme Murty’s men are best of the rest. ‘No,’ said Brown. ‘Hibs are. They came up from the Championship and have shown everyone how good they can be. ‘They’ve got a top quality manager, a good young team. If they can keep that together, who knows what they can do? ‘They definitely have given us our toughest games this season. They play good football but they’re up for the battle. ‘I think Rangers will have a point to prove, especially with the semi-final result, the way they played and everything that has been happening since. ‘They will want to come after us and try to put us under pressure, make us make mistakes. ‘But we’ve got top quality players who can cope with pressure and play through it. ‘They (Rangers) are still going for second place, as well. ‘Hibs got a great result at the weekend, obviously, so it’s all up for grabs now. But it’s always all about Celtic. If we turn up, we play, we reach our best, we beat Rangers — no problem.’ League authorities, on the advice of police, have consistently sought to avoid Celtic and Rangers playing in any kind of meaningful post-split fixture over the years — fearing that raising the stakes inevitably raises the risk of disorder. The chance to win the league in a derby meeting in front of their own fans, then, is one that the Celtic players are determined to cherish. Brown said: ‘It would be the icing on the cake, to be perfectly honest. Especially for the fans. ‘Everyone tried to stop it happening — but now we have a chance to do it. ‘We had that disappointing result at the weekend but that means we have a chance to do it on Sunday. ‘Probably nobody else apart from Celtic fans would want this to happen. ‘But now we have the chance to do it. Here’s hoping we can produce for the fans. ‘It happens so rarely, so it does give us an incentive. Especially after our disappointing result at the weekend. ‘We really need to show how good we are after a poor performance. ‘We need to make sure that, against Rangers, we just show how good we can be — especially in front of our own fans.’