Scott Brown believes a Celtic victory over Rangers on Sunday would “change the game”, as the two Glasgow sides prepare to meet for the second Sunday in a row.
Rangers won last Sunday’s Old Firm League Cup quarter-final 3-0 at home, and Celtic followed that with a 3-1 defeat by Ferencvaros at home on Thursday as they opened their Europa League campaign, capping a turbulent week for Martin O’Neill’s side. Yet Celtic’s early-season domestic form means they go into Sunday’s match in the east end of Glasgow with a five-point advantage over their Ibrox rivals. As was the case last week, no visiting supporters will be in attendance.
“If Celtic win and they’re eight points clear, it changes the game,” Brown said on BBC Scotland’s YouTube channel. The former Celtic and Scotland captain questioned whether Rangers could produce the same performance again at Celtic Park, and said Celtic had been given time to work out what went wrong. “Celtic now have had a week to understand how that game went,” he said. “They are going to have to make sure that they match that energy but also match that willingness to go and win the match.”
Brown was impressed by the approach of Rangers manager Derek McInnes in the season’s first derby, when he changed shape to a 3-5-2 and went man for man with Celtic’s front three. “They went after Celtic from the get go,” Brown said. “They looked like they wanted the win more. For him to change his tactics, nobody expected him to do that. That is a very, very good manager to pick that out.”
Brown also considered how Celtic might respond tactically. O’Neill “loved a 3-5-2” during his time as manager from 2000 to 2005, Brown recalled, with two big players up front in a team he described as unbelievable to watch, but he does not believe the current squad is suited to that system.
He feels Celtic’s difficulties run deeper than the left flank, where Yang Hyun-jun’s Asian Games duty with South Korea has left Sebastian Tounekti and James Forrest as the options used in that position. “Rangers got in their face, they blocked Callum McGregor off and as soon as you block Callum McGregor off and you man mark Cal, it’s hard for anyone else to go and dictate,” Brown said. “That’s when you need a [Benjamin] Nygren to drop under, a [Mika] Baur to go and drop under and them do their job as well. You can’t always keep looking at Cal to do everything.”
The opening exchanges, Brown added, are likely to set the tone. “Rangers were up for the fight,” he said. “The first 15 minutes, it should be a battle. If you can go and win that battle, you can get the ball down.” He noted that Celtic started very slowly last week and said they need to return to basics, matching Rangers for fight and hunger to go with the talent he is certain they possess. “You cannot have just one of those days against your biggest rivals, ever,” he said.