Unrepentant Brown Demands Better

Scott Brown is standing by his criticism of his Celtic team-mates following the shock 1-0 defeat by Hamilton at Parkhead in their last outing. After the Hoops' first loss to the Lanarkshire club in 76 years which kept the champions in sixth place in the Scottish Premiership with 10 points dropped so far this season under manager Ronny Deila, the Celtic skipper said: "People were just hiding and it was disappointing to see and play in.'' Charlie Mulgrew, who missed the game through injury, subsequently claimed that Brown might have been speaking in the heat of the moment. However, the midfielder has had more than a week to mull over his comments while away on international duty with Scotland, where he starred in the 1-0 European Championship qualifying win over Georgia at Ibrox and the 2-2 draw in Poland. And looking ahead to the trip to Ross County on Saturday, he refused to take the opportunity to retract his critique and claimed there was no problem in the dressing room. "I have definitely (calmed down) but I still believe what I said was right,'' he said. "I am not going to change my thoughts on getting beat and being angry. "I said everyone was hiding, not just some. "You have to be disappointed and have it in the back of the head that you could have done something better and as a team we should have done something better. "The lads are all fine, there are no problems whatsoever. "Sometimes the truth has got to come out and it is not always the best thing. "But at the end of the day there are a lot of good players in that dressing room, they all talk and they all believe that we are a good team. "They have faith that we can go up to Dingwall on Saturday, start well and create chances. "There has got be to bravery on the ball. Everyone has to work harder as a group. "We have to press teams better, we've got to know when to close down and when to sit off, but we have been working on that on the training ground and had meetings about it so we have to look forward and be as positive as possible.'' Asked if he had fired the Celtic players up, Brown replied: "We will see in the next few days, won't we?'' The former Hibernian player, however, believes there is now no one in the dressing room who is unaware of the high expectations at the club.

He said: "After Hamilton everyone knows that. They know they are at a big club like Celtic and we have to do better. "Good teams get beat eventually, it is about how you bounce back. "It is always hard when a new manager comes in, new tactics, new players to bond but there are no excuses now. "We need to get points on the board.'' Deila is looking to put the trauma of the Hamilton result behind him as he prepares for the match against bottom side Ross County. He said: "I was irritated about that but it's gone and now we are looking forward to the game on Saturday.'' The Norwegian will have Mulgrew, Mikael Lustig, Adam Matthews and Callum McGregor all back from injury with James Forrest close to a return as well. He said: "It's positive news there. James is very close and was training good today. "He's been a long time out so we have to be careful. Almost everybody is available in the squad which is very good.''