‘It’s time for us all to step up’
Scott Brown will not accept defeat as Celtic captain
GET angry. Be a man. Be Celtic. Scott Brown is still barking out the orders inside Parkhead almost two weeks after that disastrous 1-0 loss to Hamilton Academical on home turf and no-one, himself included, is to be spared the rod.
The Celtic captain signed off for international duty by accusing fellow players of “hiding” during that historic defeat by Hamilton and not even two fine displays for Scotland against Georgia and Poland have improved his mood.
Now back in the green and white, he has returned to the thorny issue of sorting out a misfiring and under-performing side responsible for the worst start to a season since poor old Dr Jo Venglos was telling us that apples are apples and plums are plums.
Brown’s analysis of what is going wrong with Celtic’s class of 2014 is considerably more searing. His language fruity in an entirely different way. There is not the slightest pang of regret over the criticism aimed at team-mates. They have to man up and accept it. The foreigners who have come to the club had better start understanding what it means to wear its colours. Hard luck stories don’t wash.
Brown wants to see frustration over what happened last time out channelled into a display of controlled aggression against Ross County in Dingwall at lunchtime today and believes that will happen.
There is a degree of introspection in his call to arms as well. Plaudits from his performances in the dark blue of his country are undoubtedly welcome, but they do not blind him to a particular deficiency in his own game that must be addressed forthwith. “We rely a lot on Kris Commons scoring wonder goals, but more people have to chip in with goals, especially people such as myself,” admitted Brown, who has hit the net only once this season and managed just four goals last term.
“My game has lacked that for years. I don’t care who scores, as long as we win the game, but the likes of Kris, Anthony Stokes or Leigh Griffiths need a bit of help from somebody else. It is time for us all to step up.”
This, whatever the worth of some of Brown’s other assertions, is unquestionably true. Out of the Champions League despite UEFA’s best efforts to keep them in and sitting sixth in the table having won just four of eight games, Celtic have a new manager coming under increasing scrutiny in Ronny Deila.
He is about the only person to have escaped an earful from the captain and Brown does self-deprecation well enough to make light of the current perception of him as a major league grump.
His reflections on what has been going wrong, though, will surely chime with all disgruntled Celtic supporters demanding more from those charged with delivering results on the park. “I’m just an angry wee man, aren’t I?” quipped Brown. “We don’t want to see too much anger. What we want to see are good, positive results and the lads going about their business with a smile. However, there’s a time and a place to be angry and, after a defeat, especially at home for the first time in two-and-a-half years, you’ve got to show that.
“Everyone has to be critical after you have been beaten. You can’t just take it and walk away smiling after a defeat, especially at a club such as Celtic. It was devastating for me and everyone else to lose the way we did.
“We are all big enough boys to shout at each other and give each other a little bit on the park. You have to take it on the chin. Lots of people are disappointed when we draw, never mind lose, and we have to carry that anger into games and show we can put it right.
“I think we’re going to respond in Dingwall. We’re going to have to come out, press them and put them under pressure instead of letting teams do that to us. We are Celtic. We have got to prove it week in, week out against everybody.”
“We know everyone ups their game when they play us, but we need to up our game every week as well after what happened with Hamilton.”
Brown has also detailed the importance of relationships away from the field with Scotland and explained how the absence of any Old Firm rivalry, with Rangers now in the Championship and having no-one in Strachan’s squad, has played a part in forging bonds.
“It is the best dressing room I have been in with Scotland,” he said. “We used to have the old Rangers and Celtic thing and stuff like that, but it is a great place to be now and everyone is chirpy and chatting as well. I wouldn’t say there were cliques [in the past], but it was weird when I first came in.
“You could see, automatically, that the Rangers players would sit beside Rangers players because they were best mates and Celtic would sit beside Celtic. I came in from Hibs and was going: ‘Where the f*** am I sitting?
“Am I supposed to be in this squad?’ I wouldn’t say it made it harder for the team to gel.
“The same people were playing week in, week out together. It is probably harder now, but the lads are working harder at making it work and it is good to watch.”