Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE JEERS AFTER GERS FIRED ME UP
SCOTT BROWN has rediscovered his fire after being written off following the 1-0 defeat to Rangers – three years after being told he was finished after Celtic’s last Old Firm defeat.
And the Hoops skipper insists he was happy to shoulder the blame after Ryan Jack’s goal condemned the Hoops to derby defeat at Ibrox.
Ahead of tonight’s visit of Hibs, Brown said: “It puts a smile on my face when I’m written off.
“It just makes me go out and work harder to prove to everybody that I can still do it. People walking in the streets told me they’d read in the paper that my legs had fallen off after the Rangers defeat.
“I was like ‘What – the second time?’. The semi-final defeat was three years ago and people were saying my legs had gone.
“I’m happy to take the blame for the last Rangers game. If they want to hit me with that I’m big enough and ugly enough to deal with it.
“If it eases the pressure for the other lads, I’m willing to take it. I’m 33 now and if someone is going to write to me on Twitter saying I’m finished I’m really going to cry myself to sleep at night ….”
He added: “I don’t think I have to prove a point to anybody. For me, I’ve done well over my 12 years so far.
“We’ve won a lot of games and set so many records over the past few years. Obviously you are eventually going to get beaten in a game.
“For us, it wasn’t the best performance but we’ll come back stronger from it. Since then we’ve gone on a winning run.”