THEY may need to put a leash on Scott Brown ahead of kick-off this evening.
The Scotland captain cuts a tenacious, animated figure in even the most mundane of matches and ahead of the crunch Euro 2016 qualifying fixture against the Republic of Ireland he was already eagerly preparing himself for what could be a particularly frenzied encounter between two competitive and well-matched sides.
It is a fixture that will likely be won or lost in the middle of the park and Scotland could well have an advantage in that respect. With Brown likely to patrol his home patch at Celtic Park with typical effervescence alongside either James Morrison or Charlie Mulgrew, Ireland have been diminished by the withdrawal of both James McCarthy and Glenn Whelan because of injury.
The similar standards of the sides, the significance of the match and some pre-match hostilities centring on ticket allocation and the prospective booing of Denny-born Aiden McGeady should deliver a match played at a frenetic tempo with little quarter given or asked for, not unlike an Old Firm match. That would suit Brown down to the ground.
"Yeah, it's definitely going to be like that," said the Celtic captain. "They're going to try to come for us in the first 10 or 15 minutes, especially seeing it's at our ground. So it's going to be tough. But both teams have got great players, great managers, and everyone knows what it's going to be like.
"I think this will be different from a lot of international games. It's going to start off at 110 miles an hour, especially with 60,000 fans getting behind us - that great atmosphere will push us on. As a player, you need to handle that. You've just got to relax and not let the whole Scotland-Ireland, Rangers-Celtic, whatever it is, get to you. You have to focus on playing your own game.
"I have learned that over the years in these games. Everyone's first one, you focus on trying to win the battle and stuff like that. But it's a different occasion for us, playing the Republic of Ireland on home soil at Celtic Park. We've got players who've all been in big games before, who all know what it's about."
Scotland have given the Republic only 3000 tickets for the game, much to the annoyance of John Delaney, the Football Association of Ireland's chief executive. With the rest of Celtic Park filled up with noisy, pumped-up Scots, Brown thinks that can only be to their advantage.
"I think it'll be great," he added. "If anyone has been there on Champions League nights, you will know what that extra 10 or 12 thousand can do to you, how it helps. As soon as they start singing, when you go out there, it definitely helps.
"It is going to be a huge and a great occasion. I think it is going to be about 95 per cent Scotland fans and it is going to be a great atmosphere. Hopefully they will get behind us as they usually do. [In big Celtic games] the fans get behind you and start cheering you on, especially when you are in their half of the park. It is definitely going to help us.
"Every game in these Euros now is big for us. We need to try and keep going the way we are going. We've been playing quite well recently and we need to try and keep it as positive as possible, keep going forward, creating chances and see what we can do. The movement we have had up front has been good and hopefully we can keep that going too."
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