Scott Brown admits he doesn’t recognise Celtic at the moment.
The Parkhead skipper has been left devastated at his team’s inability to hit the heights this term.
Celtic’s defeat to Ross County was the latest bitter setback in a campaign of sheer frustration which has fired an avalanche of criticism in the direction of boss Neil Lennon and the squad.
Brown’s team have come nowhere near their brilliant best of the past few seasons during the frustrating run which has put them miles out of the title race and a huge 18 points behind rivals Rangers with just eight games to go.
And, with the loss in Dingwall adding to the problems, the captain said: “That’s not Celtic, that’s not us.
“It sums the season up. It has pretty much been our season, to be honest.
“You go two, three, four wins in a row then have a defeat. It has been hard for us to take, to be honest.
“We know we’ve not played as well as we possibly could have.
“We could have scored two or three goals against Ross County but we’ve got to defend set-pieces a lot better as a team as well.
“You go late, into the 91st, 92nd minute and we’re peppering the goal and we’re forcing mistakes and errors and, to be fair, we still did that.
“It just wasn’t clear-cut chances that were falling for us.
“It was half chances and we maybe didn’t do enough in the final third for us to say that we deserved to win the game.
“I thought we defended quite well throughout the game but it’s one set play and it’s those small margins in football that you lose concentration for a few seconds, and he (White) gets a run on the lads and scores a header at the back post.
“It’s something that’s pretty much been there throughout our whole season.”
Brown was right on the spot when it went wrong again.
Astonishingly, Celtic have lost almost half of their goals in the league this season to set plays.
Lesson after lesson dished out. None learned and Neil Lennon and his coaching staff have been left exasperated by the repeat offences.
White’s goal was another bread-and-butter calamity. Brown said: “He was between me and Kris (Ajer).
“It’s zonal marking, we work on it and it’s how we do it. We keep a line. It’s part and parcel of football. People want to do zonal, others want to do man marking.
“We do a mixture of both. We can stop the run, we can head it better. We need to look at it and right it tomorrow.”
Even so, if the lads at the back made an error, the boys up front weren’t blameless.
Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie passed up golden chances to score, but Brown said: “Every team misses chances but we need to create a few more openings as well.
“The chances we created were from their mistakes. We need to play better as a team.
“We just need to make sure the final ball is spot on and put on a plate for somebody.
“Ross County had a gameplan, stuck to it and they fought well throughout the 90 minutes. It was a slack decision from us. We could have squeezed the game.
“It’s small margins of error and we’ve got to take responsibility.
“When you go up there, it’s always a tough game. We went there at the start of the season and we didn’t play too well and won 5-0. You’d probably take that rather than playing well, playing nice football and not scoring the goals and losing via a set-piece.”
Now it’s just a countdown to concession. Brown wouldn’t entertain any chat about Rangers winning the title at Parkhead but everyone knows the Light Blues will be winning it somewhere.
Celtic are playing for only pride in the last eight games and the skipper said: “We’ve got to focus on our next game and make sure we’re ready. The gaffer’s got to make sure he’s got the best team out possible and that we get back to winning ways quickly.
“That’s what this club is all about. This season’s not been great for us to be perfectly honest and the performance against Ross County probably sums it up.”
