Super Scott keeps the party swinging
BIG nights are usually followed by even bigger hangovers.
But Celtic kept their post-Manchester City party rolling with a stroll in the sunshine in Dundee.
On a day when the Bhoys could easily have been caught out, Scott Brown turned in a talismanic performance to send them into the international break comfortably top of the Premiership.
Brown started and finished the move that won the points for the Hoops, but his overall contribution was even more vital.
Less than 72 hours after he snapped and snarled his way through Pep Guardiola’s megabucks midfield, he did an even more comprehensive number on Dundee.
Celtic’s every attack pivoted through their captain – Dundee’s few forward forays were foiled the same way.
And after being lavished with fulsome postmatch praise by Brendan Rodgers, Brown insisted he can get even better under the Celtic boss’s tutelage, even at 31 years old.
“I hope I can improve under him. I’m learning a lot in terms of tactical discipline,” he said.
“We are all learning under him. We are trying to play the same way as teams like Man City.
“Their full-backs come into the middle of the park and the two midfielders move out. It’s about movement and the gaffer is improving everyone.
“Comparing this season to last season, it has been night and day.
“Getting a good pre-season was the main
thing, we worked hard, and we are growing together.
“We feel good and that’s all coming from the gaffer. We all have belief and that wasn’t there last season.
“We had a few 0- 0s at Dens and even at Celtic Park, our play was slow.
“But we press high now, it’s intense from start to finish and we will get fitter. Everything is good now.”
A visit from Brendan Rodgers’ buzzing Bhoys was the last thing Dundee, winless since the first weekend of the season, needed yesterday.
Perhaps mindful of the potential pasting that lay in wait, Dark Blues boss Paul Hartley had, through the week, even urged disgruntled fans to keep the faith.
Regardless of the rallying call, there was plenty of pre-match gallows humour echoing around the old main stand at Dens Park, with one wag warning the assembled press that a calculator would be required to keep track of Celtic’s goals.
The way the Champions went in search of them early on suggested that may well be the case. But as the chances came and went, it became increasingly clear that mental arithmetic would suffice.
With only one change to the side that tangled so admirably with City in midweek – Jozo Simunovic in at centre-half for Kolo Toure – the tiredness that seemed to creep into Celtic’s game after half- an- hour or so was understandable.
It wasn’t that the Bhoys weren’t on top – they were, and comfortably so. It was more that the sharpness they displayed against City was absent.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Even cruising along in third gear, Celtic dominated, and called Dundee ’keeper Scott Bain into urgent action three times before the break.
Scott Sinclair was their main threat, and the Englishman saw a curling effort tipped around the post, a point-blank snap-shot blocked, and a scuffed effort from a Kieran Tierney cut-back stopped on the half-time whistle.
Having also had a solid penalty shout knocked back when Erik Sviatchenko was brought down by Cammy Kerr, it could have been seen as a frustrating 45 minutes for Brendan Rodgers’ men.
Lesser teams might have crumbled, driven to desperation by their wasted efforts. Not this Celtic side. The second-half was less than two minutes old when Brown broke the deadlock at last, firing home after Moussa Dembele’s twisting, turning run into the box was foiled by the Dundee defence.
In the aftermath, the home side’s game plan – sit in, frustrate, hit on the break – was rendered worthless.
By contrast, Brown’s worth to Celtic was, once again, plain to see.