OPINION
Thursday night’s 2-0 defeat to Valencia was a rather harrowing experience for the home fans at Parkhead, and one of the players who will have disappointed them most will have been captain Scott Brown.
The Scotland international has been a fixture of this Hoops team for a decade now, and you expect him to be able to step up and lead by example on big European nights.
The fact is, though, he very much failed to do that on Thursday. In fact, it was probably his worst display of the season. He was absolutely woeful, giving the ball away with regularity and failing to contribute in a positive way in any capacity for Celtic. It was, truly, a horror show of a performance from the 33-year-old.
It was his passing that let him down on the night, with a shocker of a back-pass to Scott Bain sticking most painfully in the memory. His overall retention of the ball was dreadful, and you can’t afford to continually give possession away in the middle of the park against such high quality opposition.
He was at fault, too, in the build up to the second goal, compounding his misery further. Celtic fans watching will have been tearing their hair out seeing their skipper in action.
You really do expect better from someone of Brown’s experience and undoubted quality. He was made to look like a novice youth player by the Spanish side, not the grizzled veteran that he is.
It was men against boys for large parts of the contest on Thursday, and Brown was chief amongst the toddlers running about the pitch for the Hoops.
He needs to get his act together in time for another huge game against Kilmarnock on Sunday. On Thursday’s evidence he’ll be lucky to feature at all.