THE reaction to Celtic’s defeat against Hearts on Sunday may well, considering it was the first time they had lost a domestic fixture in 70 games, have been bordering on the hysterical in certain places.

Yet, Scott Brown, the Parkhead club’s captain, conceded yesterday the Scottish champions have failed to attain the high standards they set as they went unbeaten and won the treble last season in recent months.

The 4-0 loss at Tynecastle at the weekend was preceded by unconvincing displays and fortuitous draws against both Motherwell and Hibernian away in recent weeks and had been coming.

Read more: Scott Brown: One defeat in 70 games doesn't mean Celtic have been found out 

The midfielder, speaking as he opened a new Celtic store in Livingston, vowed there would be no repeat of their woeful showing again and targeted a return to the level they were at in the 2016/17 campaign.

“Everyone is disappointed after one defeat,” said Brown. “But it will not happen again, not the way we played. We never got on the ball, we weren’t brave enough all over the park and we didn’t defend well enough from the front to the back. It is not like us.

“Going 69 games undefeated is a fantastic achievement. I don’t think anybody would have expected that 19 months ago. It is a great standard, but that is the standard the gaffer wants us to hit every day whether it is in training or it is in games. We need to make sure when we go back into training tomorrow we hit those standards yet again and try and go on a fresh run.

“That is the good thing about football. There is another game coming around the corner. If we win on Wednesday night against Partick Thistle everyone has forgotten about the Hearts game. We just need to make sure we bounce back and get a good performance and victory.

“It has still been a good season for us. We have lost just one game. We were pretty much unbeaten until Hearts there. But we have probably not played as well as we could have this season. There has been a couple of sloppy games against Hibs and Hearts there, but it is time for us to kick on now.

“There is a great honour and pride in captaining the lads to 69 games without defeat. It is a phenomenal feeling. It shows you the disappointment the lads feel that when we get beat in the one game since the manager comes in and everybody is devastated.

Read more: Scott Brown: One defeat in 70 games doesn't mean Celtic have been found out 

“It is one game in 70. Eventually the record was going to go. It is just disappointing the way we lost it. We will bounce back. We are strong enough to deal with it. We have been beaten in the Champions League and we came back and won so we need to make sure we do that once again.”

Craig Levein’s revelation in the immediate aftermath of his side’s shock victory that he had sensed a nervousness in Rodgers’s team when their defenders were put under pressure has led to suggestions that he may have discovered a way to overcome them.

Levein had seen Anderlecht benefit from using a high press in a Champions League group game at Parkhead at the start of this month which they won 1-0 and adopted the same tactic with startling results at the weekend.

Brown, though, stressed the Scottish champions had coped with that approach before and ex-pressed confidence they would be able to do so in the future if other managers follow Levein’s lead.

“Hearts and Anderlecht are two different teams, let’s not get that wrong,” he said. “Anderlecht had 800 passes. They were fantastic the way they played. They pressed us really well, but they also got the ball down and played football the way they wanted to play.

“Hearts did it their way and managed to win as well, fair play to them. They were brilliant to be perfectly honest. They pressed us all over the park, squeezed the park, made it hard for us to play. I think every team puts every team under pressure. You try to force mistakes. The team made mistakes yesterday and that is why we got beaten.”

Read more: Scott Brown: One defeat in 70 games doesn't mean Celtic have been found out 

“But we have played against Aberdeen and we have played against Hibs when they have played a high press and we have managed to play out of that pressure and get victories as well. We will just need to continue doing what we are doing. It is the gaffer’s philosophy, it is the way we want to play. We will build on this.”

Brown added: “It is different going to Tynecastle to going to Celtic Park. Celtic Park is a lot bigger, it is a lot wider and it is in front of 60,000 of our own fans so if they press and we play through that press we will create a lot of chances and we will score a lot of goals.

“Teams will have their own way they want to play against us. I am sure their managers will maybe think about the way they play us and how they press us from now on.”

Hearts started Jamie Brandon and Harry Cochrane, who are aged just 19 and 16 respectively, and threw on Anthony McDonald, who is also only 16, in the second half and benefited enormously from their youthful exuberance.

Cochrane, who opened the scoring with a fine strike from the edge of the visitors’ box in the first half, was named Man of the Match at the end of the 90 minutes and Brown admitted he had been impressed.

“They did quite well,” said Brown. “It is great for Scottish football to have young laddies coming through. The more Scottish players coming through in the Scottish league the better it is for everyone I think.”

Read more: Scott Brown: One defeat in 70 games doesn't mean Celtic have been found out 

Asked about how he felt Cochrane fared specifically, he said: “I am up against quite a lot of players, it is not just individual battles, it is about us closing gaps. He played well on the day and he deserved the victory. Craig Levein got his tactics and his team spot on.

“Hearts have not been probably the best over the last season and a half, two seasons. Craig has come in and transformed them really well to be honest. It is like one of Craig Levein’s teams from ten years ago when he was last manager there, the high press, the long, direct physicality of the football and making Tynecastle a hard place to go.”

“Everyone wanted to beat us and Hearts were the team who played well enough on the day and managed to do it.”