Scott Brown: I enjoyed life without Rangers
● Celtic skipper warms up for Old Firm game with some gentle jibes
Scott Brown has mocked Rangers ahead of the Hogmanay Glasgow derby by expressing ambivalence over the return of top-flight football to Ibrox.
The Celtic captain will tomorrow travel to the Govan ground on club duty for the first time since the liquidation of Rangers in 2012. But he would offer only a “yes and no” when asked if he had missed this fixture during the four years a reconstituted Rangers spent working their way through the senior divisions, before adding the gentle barb: “It’s been enjoyable when they’ve not been here but you always want to go to Ibrox and beat second-placed in the league.”
With a 16-point gap between the clubs, for Brendan Rodgers’ side beating Rangers might well be secondary to the quest to continue the remarkable runs that have allowed them to put together 14 straight Premiership victories and a 23-game unbeaten domestic campaign.
“We want to continue the run for as long as we possibly can,” Brown said. “It’s going to be hard going to Ibrox but we have to just believe in ourselves and try to get the three points. We know we are a good team and if we go there and turn up on the day, we can create chances and score goals. It’s about how we play on the day. Of course [a defeat would be a sour note to go into the winter break on] but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. We are a few points clear and we have to go there and enjoy the occasion. It’s fan- tastic going back to Ibrox but we have a few days to get ourselves ready and focused on Rangers. It’s been a few years since I’ve been there with Celtic. To be fair, I went with Scotland [when Georgia were defeated 1-0 in October 2014] and got applauded for once. I might get applauded again…”
Ibrox was the scene of a turning point in Brown’s Celtic career, with the 31-yearold agreeing that his equalising goal in the clubs’ 2-2 Scottish Cup draw in January 2011 changed his relationship with the supporters. The angledarms celebration which he provocatively did directly in front of Rangers striker El Hadji Diouf ensured cult status both for the midfielder and his pose among a Celtic faithful who previously hadn’t always warmed to him.
“Yeah, I’d say so,” said Brown, when asked if the goal was a pivotal moment in his nine years at the club. “It was up with the best goals I have scored for Celtic, especially since we were down to ten men. Rangers were a good strong, physical team back then and for us to come back in the second half and score was big for us.
“It fell on to my left foot and luckily enough, I found the back of the net. It was a great occasion as we had to dig deep with ten men and believe in ourselves. We created chances, scored a goal and enjoyed the day.”
His mind is not on the gap between his Celtic team and the Rangers side hosting them tomorrow, says Brendan Rodgers. There speaks a man who can delight in what’s a chasm more than a gap between his champions-elect and their Ibrox rivals, might say the rest of us.
The Irishman sought to straight-bat most enquiries yesterday, no doubt determined to show the command of emotion so often decisive on the sort of frenetic derby day that awaits him on a first visit to Ibrox.
He provided an emphatic “no” when asked if he would love to see his team “boss it” there to demonstrate why they were so far ahead. It was about goingandperforming,hesaid. “I think we have clearly shown over the course of the season so far that we don’t need to have any propaganda.”
Rodgers took any possible sting out of being asked to respond to the contention that his team had “nothing to prove”. “We have a pride and we’re representing our supporters and in derby games it’s everything for them. We respect and understand that,” he said. But it was about continuing the “brilliant football” they had produced away from home, where they had shown the ability prosper when in a “fight” and required to “battle”.
Rangers’ apparent modification of their tactics of late didn’t induce any false stroke from Rodgers either. “We will analyse their game from last night [the 1-1 draw away to St Johnstone]. I haven’t seen any of the changes whatsoever. You’ll have seen more than me. I know Mark [Warburton] has a clear way of how he wants to work. It was maybe a little bit difficult at the beginning, because of the expectation that’s on them, but they’ve picked up some good results recently.”
Yet the Celtic manager could not resist launching a thumping hit over the boundary when asked to reflect on Rangers talking about the gap between the ancient adversaries narrowing as a result of Celtic winning only 1-0 in October’s Scottish Cup semi-final
0 Moussa Dembele, right, stretches out during training. after their 5-1 success at Celtic Park the previous month – despite all indicators bar goals scored pointing to the victories being equally as emphatic.
“I never thought anything of it. When I came in here six months ago after the Scottish Cup semi-final everyone talked about how Rangers had beaten Celtic – and for sure played better on the day – and that they were ready to jump above Celtic. I take great pride now that six months later everyone is talking about this big gap. I’m not worried about the gap. I’m only worried about the development of the team and of the club.
“What that is through points, through dominance, through possession… I’m only worried about having dangerous possession, working well and winning games. What the gap is will always be for other people to talk about and write about, but for me I don’t have any thoughts.”
The reality is that Rangers need no more be in the thoughts of Rodgers when he surveys the league landscape than they were for Neil Lennon in his latter years, or immediate predecessor Ronny Deila. The two sides may now be in the same set-up but they are not true rivals for the main prize, so much has Rodgers advanced Celtic.
There is a certain irony in this current top flight being the least competitive in a decade – Rangers at that time struggling under Paul Le Guen – when there were moves to demean Deila’s title successes because he wasn’t up against a Rangers. Never mind that Aberdeen had accumulated more points at this stage of last season than Warburton’s side have in the current campaign.
The problem with Celtic being out of sight is that the edge associated with them playing at Ibrox is undeniably blunted, though the jokey contention that Rodgers appears to have robbed us of such tension because he has made his team too good was one he, not surprisinglynot surprisingly, declined to go along with.
“Every game is intense, it doesn’t matter what the points difference is,” he said. “You are fighting for your shirt. One of the things I said to the players when I came in here was that they are defending the culture of the club. That is in every single game, not just a Celtic v Rangers or Rangers v Celtic game. You have a duty to defend the great culture of this club. Whether you are 16 points, possibly 19, possibly 22 in front it doesn’t matter; we have to fight.”
Celtic haven’t sparkled as Rodgers has used his squad to cope with the demands of December, a month in which they have faced seven league games against sides all then residing in the bottom six. None of these encounters could be described as a glamour tie, their opponents often setting out to be difficult to break down. It is doubtful that could be the Warburton way at Ibrox. Worryingly for Rangers, the need to demonstrate attacking intent at home could make them an opponent against which Celtic will have greater freedom to play.
“I think there will be more space for us,” said Rodgers. “We will play for the win, but whatever the result is for us, we know we can go and attack