Snow time for Accies to rest on their laurels, says hard task master Rice
Hamilton’s players were put through the mill in the snow after being told by manager Brian Rice to consign their Rangers result to history.
Accies were widely praise after a 1-1 draw against the leaders on Sunday but remain bottom of the table.
Ahead of tonight’s game against Livingston, Rice said: "I hope they are back down to earth. I was a bit more vocal in training, got on their backs a bit more to make sure. What we need now is to get the overalls back on again and get back to work."
The Scott Brown naysayers decided early on this season that Celtic could no longer play with the club’s waning 35-year-old captain.
Playing without the domineering figure at the core of a trophystrewn decade doesn’t seem such a straightforward option now, though.
With Brown restored to a central midfield berth for the past two league encounters, Celtic have looked a bit more like the side that snared the previous nine titles, and less like the one that has screwed up this season’s bid for a record tenth in a row.
Maybe it is just serendipity that Brown’s first back-to-back Premiership starts in two months have coincided with a mini-revival of fortunes.
The abject home loss to St Mirren was followed by a 4-0 victory at Kilmarnock, which Celtic then built on with a 2-1 home victory over Motherwell at the weekend.
Or maybe there is something more going on.
It could be that Celtic manager Neil Lennon opts against selecting Brown in his starting XI for the third time in little over a week for tonight’s assignment against the Paisley Saints – this time away from home.
Expecting a player now in his 19th senior season to peak every four days undoubtedly drained him of the snap his game relies on this season. The confrontation with Jim Goodwin’s men may then be an occasion requiring the restoration of Ismaila Soro. The 22-year-old certainly gave Celtic more legs and energy when he replaced Brown in December… only to run out of steam latterly himself. What the Ivorian understandably could not provide was the presence and aura the old stager supplied to a Celtic crying out for marshalling menace following their St Mirren shocker.
Game management of both players may then be the way forward, but fellow midfielder Callum Mcgregor is unequivocal that Brown isn’t yet a force whose time has passed.
“He still has a huge impact, and write him off at your peril, because he’s going to come back,” said the club’s vice-captain. “He’s done it a few times now, and certainly the game against Kilmarnock, I thought he was the best player on the pitch. He was absolutely outstanding.
“The thing with Scott is that people underestimate how good a footballer he is and how good his football brain is. He plays in that position so well. He can take it, turn and play forward. He knows the position so well defensively, and he gives us a real base. Then there’s all the other leadership qualities that he has, and you can see it rubbing off on the team. Over the past 13 years he’s been right up there along with the best Celtic players that there’s been, and there’s a reason for that: it’s because he’s so good.”
Lennon doesn’t deny that redefining and resetting Brown’s place in the team, and recognising he is at a stage in his career where unavoidable physical diminishment precludes automatic first choice status, hasn’t been easy. “That’s because of the influence he’s had, what he’s achieved in the game and how he’s received in the dressing room,” the Celtic manager said. “He probably hasn’t been at his influential best this season. When we went into the lockdown last March he was playing brilliantly, looking really fit and producing really powerful performances. The lockdown had an adverse impact on him.
“Broony’s also one of those players who feeds off the energy of the crowd so having no fans in the ground hasn’t helped him either.
It’s always difficult when you see a player with that temperament and personality start to come towards the end of his career; you have to deal with that as delicately as you possibly can. I brought him back for the Scottish Cup final in December because I thought it was the right thing to do with a player with his experience and quality and that proved to be the case. But I still think he has a lot to offer, although maybe not so much as he has done in previous seasons. That’s just the natural course of things, whether it’s football or any other walk of life. I thought he was excellent at Kilmarnock last midweek and he also played well for an hour against Motherwell at the weekend. He had a couple of games out through suspension and came back fresh and strong.”
Brown has been coy about what lies in store for him beyond the expiry of his current Celtic contract in a matter of four months’ time. Even as he himself has acknowledged he
cannot cover the ground as in his peak years, it has been possible to infer he would be willing to sign on for another season if there was a possibility of featuring semi-regularly. Mcgregor suggests his worth in such a role, which would allow the club to benefit from his strength of character and sense of purpose, would be immeasurable.
“I think he’s always going to have value to the club,” the 27-year-old said. “Obviously, I don’t want to speak about what he should do or what he is going to do, that’s up to Scott.
But I just always think he’s going to have value at this club, he’s such a big personality and such a big leader.
"If we are lucky enough to get him for another year then that would be a brilliant decision, but if he decides something else then you have to respect that as well. As long as he wants to be at Celtic, we’re lucky to have him.”
Four years ago Mark Warburton was Rangers’ manager. And then, one night, he wasn’t.
A statement published on the Friday evening of February 10, 2017 was unexpected. Rangers were gearing up for a Scottish Cup tie with Morton and sitting joint second in the table, third on goal difference behind Aberdeen and 27 points from leaders Celtic in the midst of their invincible season with Brendan Rodgers.
And then the shock.
One of the many surprised by Rangers’ statement was the manager, or by thatstagetheformermanager,himself.
Both Warburton and assistant Davie Weir denied they stepped away from the job they were little over halfway through. They’d restored the club to the top division, but the title was still a distance away.
Rangers’ announcement claimed the pair resigned from their roles via a representative - a claim both Weir and Warburton vehemently denied, and still do.
“We never resigned. I would know if I’d resigned,” Weir said on a podcast interview at his current club Brighton in October. “I didn’t resign from Rangers.whywouldiresignfromrangers? Youwouldknowifyouresignedandwe didn’t resign.”
Andspeakingononnationalradio18 months after the controversial exit, Warburton said: “I want to ram home the point that you would never walk away from a club of Rangers' stature. I did not resign, absolutely not.”
The abrupt ending for the pair - plus head of recruitment Frank Mcpartland-sentshockwavesthrough the club’s support, and surprised Scottish football on that quiet Friday night.
Its ripples rocked one of the smoother periods of Rangers’ ascent back throughthescottishfootballdivisionsgraememurtyandpedrocaixinhafollowed before Steven Gerrard restored calm again.
In 20 months at Ibrox, Warburton presided over 82 games and won 54 a year of which was in the Championship. It’s his best record as a manager, better than his Portuguese successor and matches Gerrard’s win percentage, albeit at a level lower and without European football.
Warburton went on to Nottingham Forest, spending nine months at the Citygroundbeforelandingaroleinhis native London at Queen’s Park Rangerswhereheisapproachinghissecond anniversary.buttodaywarburtonstill retains a lasting legacy at Ibrox, four yearssincetheconfusionofhisparting.
If, or as looks increasingly likely, whenrangersliftthescottishpremiership trophy as champions for the 55th time-atitleeulogisedinthesupporter’s songdedicatedtohim-itwillbehoisted byjamestavernier,oneofwarburton’s firstsigningsasmanager,andlikelyhis most influential.
Tavernier’s input to resurrecting Rangers from the Championship alongside Warburton and to the brink of a Premiership title under Gerrard is notinsignificant,17goalsand12assists from 39 games at right-back this season will testify to that.
“Justbecauseyoudidn'thavesuccess as a previous manager doesn't mean youhaven'tplayedyourpart,”saidgerrard last week. No Warburton, no Tavernier.
Their reign may have come to an unsatisfactory conclusion, but four years on, Rangers are close to achieving the title objective they set out for and they can play their part by proxy through Tavernier. 0 Mark Warburton left Ibrox in untidy fashion but his legacy includes James Tavernier, below.