Scott Brown left baffled as Kilmarnock beat under-par Celtic

SCOTT BROWN found it hard to explain why Celtic suffered only the second domestic of Brendan Rodgers reign as manager at Kilmarnock.

The Hoops have eight injured players but the skipper admitted they have a huge squad.

The Rugby Park plastic pitch doesn’t suit them but he acknowledged that’s something they just have to deal with.

The truth is that Killie managed this game a whole lot better than the Champions.

Beating Celtic is, of course, still a major scalp for any team, and talking about a victorious Scottish team that doesn’t play in green and white is an unusual experience for Brown these days.

The 32-year-old did his best to emphasise how rare a defeat is, even though it’s their second Premiership loss this season.

He said: “People will try different things to beat us because we have done so well.

“Kilmarnock beat us and you saw their players celebrating in front of our fans like they’d won the World Cup.

“It’s one of those ones, they are delighted and we are disappointed.

“It is always hard when they sit deep with a lot of men behind the ball and try to counter attack.

“We didn’t deal with that as well as we probably should have done.”

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers was equally flummoxed by what he saw as an under-par showing by his team.

He said: “We could’ve played until midnight and not scored. We weren’t really threatening.

“I accept surface is dreadful but we weren’t good enough in terms of our creativity, considering the talent we had on the pitch.

“It was a disappointing day for us.”

The truth is that Kilmarnock were everything that Celtic weren’t – they snapped into tackles, closed players down and were direct in attack.

Last season the Hoops consistently found a way through teams that challenged them to break down two banks of four.

They’re not finding that so easy this term.

Of course, it didn’t help that Celtic lost two of their three central defenders during the first half.

Dedryck Boyata limped off with a groin injury after just 10 minutes and Kristoffer Ajer followed him 25 minutes later with an ankle knock.

Celtic will feel things might have been different with their first-choice defence in place, but more worrying was their inability to create a similar clear-cut chance.

Jamie MacDonald only had one real save to make and that came right at the end when he pushed away a Olivier Ntcham free-kick.

Kilmarnock show no sign of losing the confidence that Steve Clarke has brought to the club. They proved that last weekend’s defeat at Aberdeen was merely a blip in the Rugby Park revival.

It was fitting that Youssouf Mulumbu started and finished the goal that made the difference.

He showed fantastic vision to spot Jordan Jones free on the left wing and sent a brilliant cross-field pass into the path of his team-mate.

The former West Brom midfielder continued his run and was free at the back post to calmly smack Jones’ cross past the keeper.

Kilmarnock could have – and possibly should have – scored at least another couple of goals. Jones smashed one over the bar when he really should have squared the ball to Lee Erwin.

The Northern Ireland international and Mulumbu then both forced the Celtic goalie into saves in the dying minutes.

Clarke punched the air as Killie celebrated their first win over Celtic in 17 matches.

Rodgers led a group of players with their heads bowed to acknowledge what was left of the travelling support.

Clarke had regained his composure after the match. He’s a cool customer and wasn’t rattled by being asked if he was expecting to hear from the SFA – he must be a candidate for the Scotland job.

“From the SFA?,” he said. “I’m not sure, what have I done?

“It’s Brora Rangers in the cup next weekend and we’ll give them every respect, as we did Celtic.”