game and protect players from the sort of barbaric treatment dished out to Shunsuke Nakamura at Kilmarnock "I ask my players to be brave and to take the ball and they did that the other night. But I think that if you get hit and it's not fair, then it's up to other people to protect them. The rules are there to protect the players, it's up to the referees to use the rules."

The Celtic boss explained that Nakamura wasn't substituted because he was afraid of the punishment he was taking "I say to our smaller type of footballers, our tricky players, that they have to accept knocks as part of the job and to get up and get on with it. That's what I ask from them. Naka didn't ask to be taken off because of the tackling that was going on it, he just didn't want to make his injury worse. I don't think Naka lost his head at Kilmarnock. I've seen people lose the head and that wasn't an example."

Scott Brown thinks that his team-mate was unfairly targetted by the Ayrshire

thugs because of the damage he's done to them in the past and he agrees with his boss that referees need to do more to protect players "If you see the goals he has scored against Kilmarnock, he's scored about seven free kicks in the last three years, you can understand why they targeted him. You need a wee bit of balance, you need to find out when to have a wee chat with the players or a yellow card."

Scott thought some of the challenges from the Kilmarnock boot-boys were outrageous and he's mystified as to why the match official booked the Japanese midfelder for holding up four fingers "I think there were some ridiculous challenges during the week and I don't know why Naka got booked but he did. You can understand why he reacted. The ball was nowhere to be seen and the player came though the back of him. The referee didn't really see it and neither did the linesman."

Midfielder Brown is enjoying his season so far and it's showing in the consistently good performances which resulted in his 'Player of the Month' award for October "Personal praise is good but I don't make the Celtic team" he said "if you ask Naka or Aiden they would say the same. It's not one player who makes the team here, we all look out for each other, we're a team who want to go out there and play football and we've all relished that fact."

As an ex-Hibee Scott is looking forward to visiting the home of his erstwhile

derby foes "Tynecastle is up there as one of the best atmospheres" he said "because it is a nice, tight stadium and you can hear everything the fans say and that's brilliant, especially when you are taking a throw-in. You'll hear something and think, 'Hey, that's quite good. I could use that"

"I've probably had loads of great one-liners thrown at me but you try to switch off at the time. You know you can't react anyway. You just have to enjoy it and play your game. It brings the best out in most players and that's what is good about Tynecastle" he continued "Everyone is up for it there and it helps with me being an ex-Hibee as well."

Scott knows that as many Celtic fans as possible will be in the stadium but it's one of the few venues where the visiting Celtic support are vastly outnumbered. "Celtic don't get the same kind of support because of the ticket situation and it is usually Hearts fans you hear singing here, there and everywhere." he said "Our supporters are at one side of the stadium but we go places pretty much every other week where we've got people shouting against us."

Celtic will head for Edinburgh in good spirits and with a confidence engendered by recent domestic form "It has been a good month with plenty of good team performances week in, week out." said Brown "We haven't had a lot of height in the side in that time but we've managed to cope with the loss of a couple of our strikers and we're playing good football, creating chances and scoring goals. I might get stick for not scoring them but it doesn't matter as long as we are winning."

Despite the best attempts of the Killie destroyers Shunsuke Nakamura looks to have overcome the brutality of Wednesday night and he joins skipper Stephen McManus in the squad for tomorrow.

Celtic (from): Boruc, Hinkel, McManus, Naylor, Wilson, O'Dea, Caldwell, Scott

Brown, Donati, Nakamura, Hartley, McGeady, McDonald, Sheridan, Maloney,

Mark Brown, Robson, McCourt, Caddis.