Brown ‘shut down’ due to injury

Celtic skipper Scott Brown to be ‘shut down’ after ankle injury flares up again in Old Firm defeat

NEIL LENNON revealed he’ll have to “shut down” Scott Brown after his skipper’s ongoing ankle complaint flared up again yesterday.

Brown returned to the Celtic side for the Old Firm derby after missing the last two games due to injury.

However, the midfielder limped off after 74 minutes of the 4-2 defeat at Ibrox.

And Hoops boss Lennon believes the midfielder now needs an extended rest. He said: “The ankle has gone again unfortunately. He felt fine before the game, he trained the day before the match and looked great for an hour.

“He actually got us playing in the first half and was instrumental in both our goals so it was a blow losing him.

“We don’t know how long he is going to be out for now. It looks as if he is going to be shut down for a while until we can let it settle and get it right.”

While Lennon praised the efforts of his captain he was less impressed by the contribution of some of his other stars at Ibrox.

After going behind to a Steven Naismith goal Lennon’s side fought back to hold a 2-1 half-time lead thanks to strikes from Gary Hooper and Badr El Kaddouri.

But the Celtic players went missing after the break as goals from Nikica Jelavic and Kyle Lafferty put Rangers 3-2 ahead.

Celtic also had Charlie Mulgrew sent off in 75 minutes after he picked up a second yellow card and the home side turned the screw with Naismith sealing the win late on.

It was a woeful secondhalf display from Celtic and Lennon questioned his players’ character.

He said: “I am angry with our overall performance. I wouldn’t like to question their character but I had to ask that after the game.

“We were second best a lot of the time and in games like this you have to win second balls, you have to battle and scrap and there wasn’t a lot of that on show in the second half. We lost the physical battle.

“We didn’t compete and it was almost as if the players went out after the break thinking the game was already won.

“We had given them all instructions that they might have to weather a bit of a storm but we looked flat in the second half and that’s not like us.

“I am really disappointed with the second goal from the corner.

“It was reminiscent of the one we lost on Thursday night in Madrid. It was almost a carbon copy and it is people not doing their jobs properly and that has cost us the game.”

On Mulgrew’s dismissal for a foul on Steven Davis, Lennon said: “I didn’t think it was a sending-off. I thought he got plenty of the ball so I was a bit annoyed about that too.”