I CAN fully understand Scott Brown’s

criticism of the Hampden pitch following Scotland’s friendly against

Denmark – but my only advice would be that Celtic can’t go into the game against Rangers later this month

letting it affecting their mindset and dictating their performance.

If you go in there thinking like that then there is a danger that you take your eye off the ball in a game in which, if the surface is as bad as that, you really need to have your wits about you.

I fully get the criticism, but if you allow a team to play on the national surface every second week throughout the campaign then I don’t think it is too much of a surprise that when we get to the season’s showpiece events we are serving games up on sub-standard turf.

I know the pitch was relaid at the beginning of March and it can take a while for the new surface to knit together, but at the same time you can understand why players turning out for their country or playing in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup expect to be playing on a good pitch.

However, the only thing I would urge Scott to do is to go and have a trawl through some YouTube footage of some of our games in the 70s – I can assure you that very few of them were played on a bowling green.

It will be the same for both teams and there are times when you simply have to roll up the sleeves and get on with it.

That isn’t to say that the criticism is unwarranted because it was.

You would like to think that we have come a long way from the days of my career when games were played on mud plenty of times and we should expect that big games like the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final are played in much better conditions that than the days of the past.

In any case, Celtic still need to put it on the back burner and more or less put the league to bed before that game rolls around.

Hearts and Dundee tomorrow and Tuesday respectively are an opportunity for Celtic to go out and ensure that they make that happen by the way they go about their business now.

Traditionally, games between Celtic and Hearts tend to be fairly entertaining affairs and there is a bit of added intrigue in that so far this season – one league duty – Ronny Deila’s men have failed to beat the Tynecastle outfit.

Granted, they knocked them out of the League Cup, but Hearts are coming into the game on the back of a sound defeat by St Johnstone and will look to leave an impression, as they always do.

This isn’t the time for Celtic to talk about what they intend to do but rather to go out and simply get the points. Psychologically they are in a position now where they hold all the aces and most of us would say that the title was effectively won at Rugby park a couple of weeks ago.

But one player who might want to hit the ground running in tomorrow’s lunchtime kick-off is Leigh Griffiths.

The striker has had an impressive season, but failed to hit the mark at Hampden on Scotland duty.

It would be harsh, I think, to judge him solely on that midweek performance against Denmark because I felt that while he look very isolated at times, there was never really any service up towards him.

I still think that ultimately it will be Steven Fletcher who is given the nod when the World Cup qualifying campaign rolls around, but it was a difficult game for Griffiths to make any real impression in because of the flow of the game.

He might feel himself that he didn’t do justice to the chance, but in fairness there was very limited scope for him to make his presence felt.

There is a step up from club football to international football, but you would think that if he ends the season in the same form as he has shown throughout the campaign that he will warrant another chance for Scotland.