Neil Lennon revealed he will have to "shut down" Scott Brown after the Celtic skipper succumbed to his on-going ankle complaint again in the pulsating 4-2 Clydesdale Bank Premier League defeat by Rangers at Ibrox.
Brown returned to the Hoops side for the first Old Firm game of the season and in a driving, powerful first-half performance, he set up Gary Hooper and Badr El-Kaddouri for their goals after Steven Naismith had opened the scoring for the home side, although Gers keeper Allan McGregor all but threw the Moroccan's long-range drive in to the net.
However, the Scotland midfielder, like the rest of the Celtic players, struggled after the break and when his injury flared up again he had to be replaced by James Forrest as goals from Nikica Jelavic, Kyle Lafferty and Naismith confirmed the champions' dramatic comeback and Lennon said: "It looks as if he is going to be shut down for a while until we can let it settle and get it right."
Brown played down the extent of his injury, saying, "I managed to hurt myself just a little bit but hopefully I will be okay."
However, the Parkhead boss was not as confident in his prognosis.
"The ankle has gone again unfortunately," said Lennon. "He got us playing in the first half, he was instrumental in both of our goals so it was a blow losing him.
"He felt fine before the game, he trained yesterday before the game and looked great for an hour. We don't know how long he is going to be out for now."
Hoops utility player Charlie Mulgrew was sent off with the score 3-2 in the 75th minute, earning the second of his two yellow cards for a tackle on Steven Davis but that was almost an irrelevance to Lennon, who questioned his players' character.
"I am angry, full stop, with our overall performance," he said. "I wouldn't like to question their character but I had to ask that after the game.
"I don't know if there was any fatigue from the game on Thursday night (against Atletico Madrid) night but we were second best a lot of the time and in games of this calibre you have to be physical, you have to win second balls, you have to battle and scrap and there was not a lot of that on show in the second half."
Source: PA
