Celtic captain Callum McGregor has dismissed the emotional aspect of Scott Brown’s Parkhead return and has instead outlined the importance of the game itself.
Brown will make his first appearance at Celtic Park this afternoon since leaving the club after a glittering 14-year career in Glasgow’s East End. Brown, who already appears to be one of Aberdeen’s senior leaders, left Celtic with as many as 22 competition wins.
His legacy at Parkhead is there for all to see. So much so that it seems inevitable he’ll be back in a coaching capacity one day.
But for now, he’s coming up against his former club in a crucial Premiership clash. And it’s fair to say McGregor, despite clearly looking forward to seeing Broony, wants to focus solely on the game itself.
As quoted by the Scottish Sun, the captain said: “It will be a big occasion for Scott and it will be good to see him. But the same time, we have to look at the game itself because we need three points.
“That means trying to take the emotion out of it to focus on what we need to do. Once the game is over we will have a chat, but for the 90 minutes both of us will be doing everything we can to win.
“Scott was brilliant for me when I was coming through in terms of always giving me any help he could. Over the last few years we got really close and he was always helping me so it wasn’t a case of sitting down and having chats. He was such a great leader. There were always bits where I would try and learn off what he would do in any given situation.”
Scott Brown vs Celtic at Parkhead – who thought we’d ever be here?
It doesn’t matter if Brown plays for another 3 years at Pittodrie – watching him come up against Celtic won’t ever become normalised. He’s just far too synonymous with the Hoops for us to ever get used to this.
Not that’ll be his first time up against his former employers of course. Brown put in a battling display in a 2-1 Pittodrie defeat just under 3 months ago. If that was any indication, he’ll be as determined as anyone to get the job done this afternoon.
But McGregor is spot on. It’s absolutely vital that the emotion is taken out of this one this afternoon. Especially when you strip everything back and look at both side’s respective Premiership situations.
The idea that Brown will be rocking up and looking forward to reminiscing about old times couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s arriving today to get a big win for his club. That’s his mentality. That’s what we’ve known Brown to be over the last 14 years. He doesn’t allow off-field distractions to affect his on-field performance.
The same goes for Celtic. There won’t be a player on that pitch in green and white today looking to take it easy just because it’s Brown’s return. We don’t have the luxury for nonsense like that. When Broony starts that match in a red jersey, he’s just as much of a rival as Lewis Ferguson.
It’s promising to see McGregor come straight out and acknowledge this. This is anything but friendly rivalry this afternoon. It’s Celtic vs Aberdeen, and there’s no love lost regardless of who’s playing.
In other news, The “top class” Celtic player Lewis Ferguson can’t get enough of
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