WHAT a lot of people don’t realise is that when you play for Celtic, every time you take to the field you have to be at your best. You are the team that are up there to be shot at, and everyone desperately wants to beat you.

The opposition always raises their game tenfold, it’s like a cup final to them, and they always bust a gut to try and take that scalp of beating such a huge club.

I’m reminded of Sir Alex Ferguson’s take on it, who we are all obviously hoping makes a full recovery after the brain haemorrhage he suffered at the weekend, while he was dominating the English game with Manchester United. He said that if teams put in as much effort against everyone else as they did against his team, then they wouldn’t be struggling in the table and would be up challenging them.

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It’s the same at Celtic, and it’s something you just have to deal with and make sure you are at it in every single game. They desperately want to beat the best, and Celtic are the best.

The fact that Hearts even set up their pitch in such a way to try to stop Celtic playing shows you the lengths that teams will go to, but while Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers was upset about that, the far bigger issue for me was the tackle from Steven Naismith on Scott Brown. How he stayed on the pitch after that, I don’t know.

As a Celtic player, you are always aware that you might come in for a bit of treatment from players from smaller clubs, but the challenges being meted out on Brown at the minute are going beyond the pale.

It isn’t the first time that we have seen an opposition player leave the boot in on Scott over the past couple of months, and while the Celtic captain has had his own share of transgressions over the years, there is no doubt that he is becoming the most targeted player in the Scottish Premiership.

To be fair to Brown, the boy just gets up and gets on with it, but as soon as he lays a glove on another player, there always seems to be a massive outcry and suddenly it’s an outrage.

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Scott Brown isn’t allowed to tackle, but everybody else is allowed to boot Scott Brown all over the park, and I just think that it is unfair.

But there’s only one reason why this is happening, and it’s simply because he’s a class above any other midfielder in the Scottish Premiership. He should take this sort of attention as a back-handed compliment, with opposition players clearly feeling the only chance they have of competing with him is by putting the boot in. The only way teams think they can stop him is to kick lumps out of him and try to wind him up, but he’s shown that his temperament is first class.

There is no doubt that he has matured, and perhaps if that Naismith tackle was put in on him a few years ago we would have seen a very different reaction from Brown. But the responsibility he now feels from being the captain, and working under Brendan Rodgers who is a stickler for discipline, has led to Brown maturing so much. He’s taken on the armband and he’s taken on the responsibility, and he realises that his team need him. He’s no good to the team when he’s in the stand suspended.

He’s taken his responsibilities of being Celtic captain on and thrived under them. He relishes that mantle, with millions of kids out there who look up to him. He leads by example.

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When he plays well, Celtic generally win. He’s become a huge player for the club and he’s still extremely fit. He’s inspirational, and that’s why he’s loved by so many Celtic fans all around the world.

And while he is clearly being targeted for some special treatment at the minute, I think that he actually rather enjoys it. Everyone wants to go up against the best, and he loves that role.

He has a quirkiness about his character that you need, and he can have a laugh and a smile about it. We saw his little jig up at Aberdeen the other week after he got absolutely nailed. I don’t care what anyone says, his knee must have been really sore, but with the cameras on him he’s ignored it for a minute and just thought ‘I’ll get the ice on it when I get into the dressing room, for now I’ll do a little walk and show the opposition that they won’t get to me.’

That was great, and he absolutely does enjoy having that target on his back.

He’s is still so fit, and I think that the challenge of going on and be the Celtic captain to achieve 10-in-a-row will be on his mind. And the only way I can see him being denied that incredible feat is if somebody ends his career with one of these wild challenges, rather than defeating him and Celtic fair and square.