SORE POINT
I can handle the bad tackles, says Brown, but not the suggestion that I’m reaping what I sow
THANKFULLY for Celtic, Scott Brown has not been physically wounded by any of the three appalling challenges he has been subjected to over the past ten weeks.
Only Sam Cosgrove, Andrew Davies and Steven Naismith will honestly know if there was any malicious intent when they stopped the Parkhead skipper in his tracks in brutal fashion.
On each occasion, only a generous slice of good fortune allowed 32-year-old Brown to dust himself down and go again.
Asked about it yesterday, he attempted to pass the issue off with humour. ‘Keep letting the bad tackles happen,’ he laughed. ‘The more people that get sent off the better. It will help us. That’s if they get sent off!’
Perhaps Brown can afford to smile at these recurring incidents because he has emerged none the worse for them. But it does hurt him. If not physically, more the perception that he is a player who is, in some way, deserving of such treatment.
Had that accusation been made a decade ago, when he marauded about Scotland’s parks like his hair was on fire, it may have held some water. Nowadays, however, Brown feels such stereotyping has little foundation in reality.
‘I don’t care about the tackles,’ he insisted. ‘But it’s always going to be like that because people think I’m a hard tackler, unfair, someone who lunges into challenges.
‘But that really isn’t my game any more. My game is to get on the ball, keep a hold of it, dictate play and play other people in.
‘I cover positions and look after everyone on the park, sitting in front of the back four. I break up play but I stay on my feet and don’t lunge in. I slow the play down for my team-mates to come in and help me.’
It’s a good job Brown has never sought to win popularity contests. He will always be the kind of player opposition fans love to hate.
Not only is that unlikely to cost him much sleep, there is a sense he positively thrives on it.
But even his greatest detractors would surely concede his game has matured and evolved enormously from his early days in a Celtic shirt.
Some players may have scored more goals. Others run more yards and claim more assists. In terms of dictating the play and influencing the game, however, Brown is without compare.
‘If you look at touches in the game, I’m probably up there with most players in the team,’ he said. ‘It goes through myself, Tom (Rogic), Callum (McGregor) in the middle of the park. We try to dominate games from start to finish.
‘We try to play football the proper way on a nice, short pitch with loads of water on it,’ said Brown in a cheeky reference to the surface at Tynecastle last Sunday.
‘We try to slow it down a bit. We know when to come back in and defend but also when to speed it up. We’ve got pace everywhere in the team.’
Brendan Rodgers’ arrival almost two years ago proved to be the turning point for a player who looked as good as finished when Celtic lost to Rangers in the 2016 Scottish Cup semi-final.
Rodgers not only cast him in a new role but got him fit again and renewed his confidence. After an indifferent time under Ronny Deila, Brown fell in love with the game all over again.
‘Sometimes I’m deeper than the two centre-halves,’ he said of his new role. ‘The gaffer wanted me to play in this different position — sitting in front of the back four instead of trying to be a box-to-box player and running about all over the place, tackling everybody and starting World War Three in the middle of the park.’
Brown (right) feels Rodgers has opened his eyes to fresh possibilities. ‘It’s about learning the game, enjoying having the ball at your feet, keeping control of it for 90 minutes rather than launching into tackles and getting suspensions,’ he said. ‘Football is changing all the time. There are new formations and new areas for players to play in. There’s the one I’ve been playing, plus the false nine that no one had heard of three or four years ago. A new manager comes in and he has his philosophy. Luckily enough for me, I fit into it.’ Naismith may yet be cited by the SFA for the lunge on Brown which, unlike those of Cosgrove and Davies, went unpunished at the time. Hearts have already said they will defend any charges, with boss Craig Levein yesterday claiming the challenge did not cross the line in his view. However, the irony of Levein’s recent claim that other players ‘needed protection from Scott Brown’ wasn’t lost on the midfielder.
‘Craig’s banter is getting better as he gets older,’ he said. ‘If he was younger and had this sort of banter I’d have been buzzing!
‘Craig can say what he wants. It’s all speech play to deflect from the result and how well we played them at our own game — and the fact we beat them on a shocking park.’
There appeared to be no love lost between ex-Scotland team-mates Naismith and Brown as the former quite literally put the boot into his opponent.
‘I get on brilliantly with Naisy and still will to be fair,’ insisted Brown. ‘It’s one tackle. I’ve had a lot worse from a lot of other people and still speak to them.
‘We both want to win. He’s played in the English Premier League, so he knows what top standard is and he’s maybe not getting it where he is.’