looking Here’s at you kid
Veteran Broony and young gun Frimpong have eye on prize
HE has been written off more times than Mr Magoo’s motor but a blind man can see Scott Brown keeps driving Celtic to ever greater heights.
This remarkable player continues to keep his team on the straight and narrow every time there’s the slightest hint they’re about to fall asleep at the wheel.
In all honesty that was never really the case at Hampden on Saturday when Celtic made it through to the League Cup Final for the fourth year in a row having won the previous three.
But when Hibs briefly threatened to make their way back into the game, scoring through Florian Kamberi to make it 4-2, the Celtic skipper lifted his team into another gear.
Maybe it was dunt in the face he took from Scott Allan in the 88th minute.
Brown clearly felt it and didn’t like it but decided retribution would come in the shape of a sensational fifth goal that sent the Leith team home with their tails between their legs like a “skelped dug” as one of their fans, Josh Taylor, said last week in beating Regis Prograis.
Brown picked up a loose ball 30 yards from his own goal and scorched forward into the vast open space left by the Hibs team that had ventured forward in search of a third goal that would have made the finale interesting.
It might have been the last minute, he might be 34 years old working in the most exhausting part of the pitch, but Brown charged forward like a man 10 years younger.
When a defender finally came to meet him he dinked a lovely ball to Mohamed Elyounoussi and kept going for the return pass.
His first shot, with the right peg, drew a good save from Chris Maxwell but Brown wasn’t to be denied with the left foot from the rebound. It was his second goal of the day, having earlier bundled home Celtic’s fourth. Only the posts, twice, and the denial of a blatant first-half penalty when Paul Hanlon clearly handed, stopped the defeat from being even heavier for Hibs. That said Lennon’s men got lucky with their second goal, created by Odsonne Edouard for Callum McGregor when the
Frenchman was offside as he received the ball.
It left Paul Heckingbottom’s men, who had started quite brightly, 2-0 down in 20 minutes and looking to be on the end of a hiding.
But a little bit of sloppiness in clearing a free-kick launched into their box led to Boli Bolingoli poking a pass straight to Melker Hallberg who stuck the chance past Fraser Forster.
Any hope of completing a fightback by half-time was extinguished by some great work from Edouard, who laid on a plate
a second goal of the afternoon for Elyounoussi. The winger had opened the scoring with a header from James Forrest’s cross and constantly worried the Hibs defence by coming in off the left to cause all kinds of panic.
The Norwegian has been an astute signing and he wasn’t the only one to catch the eye.
Right-back Jeremie Frimpong was electrifying at times and tag-teamed with Forrest to give poor Lewis Stevenson a torrid time on the Hibs left.
McGregor covered every blade of grass but such is this man’s consistency that excellence is now seen as the norm where he is concerned.
Lennon believes McGregor’s a future captain but he’ll have to wait a while because Brown isn’t hobbling into retirement anytime soon.
Four in a row in the League Cup, going for nine in a row in the league and now on a run of 30 cup ties without defeat.
The aggregate score is 95-11 in those games. It’s simply an incredible feat and the man with the armband has been the beating heart of it all. He started at Hibs, of course, and how his former club could do with someone like him to help the clutch of midfield players at Heckingbottom’s disposal.
Allan and Stevie Mallan are really good footballers with the ball at their feet but they desperately need a minder in the mould of Brown to complement what they can bring to this team.
The Easter Road side played well in the second half and there was enough in the performance to suggest Heckingbottom hasn’t lost the dressing room, despite a wretched start to the season that sees them struggling at the wrong of the table and now out of the League Cup.
They’re in a tailspin and the fans have had enough. The thousands who didn’t take up the chance to be at Hampden prove that confidence in Heckingbottom is in short supply.
If he survives the week a trip to St Johnstone beckons and even the aforementioned Mr Magoo can see what the outcome of another defeat will be.
Celtic have no such problems. Not with Brown at the wheel of their juggernaut.