Celtic captain Scott Brown has hit back at critics who say that at 33 years of age his playing legs have gone.
Much has been made of Brown’s advancing years and while there is no doubt he is entering the final stages of his playing career, he still has a season or two left at least playing at Scottish Premiership level.
He received a massive amount of criticism in the wake of our defeat to Rangers at Ibrox in December, but he insists it’s all just motivation him.
As quoted by The Daily Record, he 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 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…
I don’t think I have to prove a point to anybody. For me, I’ve done well over my 12 years so far.
Having just signed a new two-year deal at the Hoops, Brown will have plenty of opportunities to right the wrongs from that day at Ibrox. There are no excuses to be made in that regard, everyone had a horror show at Ibrox.
However, Brown’s bad days over the last few years have been few and far between and writing him off seems incredibly silly when he has led Celtic to unprecedented success.
He looked back on top form against St Johnstone at the weekend and if anyone things he will easily let go of the Scottish Premiership title then they must have taken a knock on the head.
I have a feeling he is about to prove all his doubts wrong yet again.