Scott Brown's move from Hibernian to Celtic in the summer of 2007 for £4.4million was seen by some of the experts as a shrewd piece of business for Scotland's outstanding young talent but so far the 23 year-old has struggled to justify that outlay.
But Celtic manager Gordon Strachan insists that the young man is well on his way to becoming the all-round midfielder his boss envisaged. Brown's role at Hibs was as an attacking central midfielder but with both Celtic and Scotland he has found himself deployed in every area of the midfield recently.
Strachan likened Brown's football education process to his own under Sir Alex Ferguson during his time at Pittodrie. "Scott played a different role for Scotland recently and last week he played more on the right for us, so he's learning to play everywhere in midfield." he said "When Scott played with Hibs, they had three central midfield players and he had a free-role to go anywhere but it's a wee bit different at Celtic."
"There are two central midfielders here and so he's got to time those runs and make sure they are right. It's taken him a wee while to get to grips with it but Scott is just a young man. I remember Alex Ferguson tried to play me as a sitting midfielder at Kilmarnock one day and I was like a duck out of water. That never happened again."
"But when I played the sitting role for Manchester United seven or eight years later it wasn't a problem for me because I knew the game better. Scott is learning to stand still at times, sometimes the ball can come to you if you stand still. But we can't stop his running power and we'd never do that but he needs to do it at the right times. But I think Scott should be pleased with his performances this year, his energy is fantastic and he's not far away from being on top form."
Strachan is looking forward to today's game at Kilmarnock but he doesn't expect his side to have a four goal lead at half-time as they did at Motherwell last week. "We didn't predict a 4-0 at half-time there last week and I don't think we'll predict a 4-0 for this week. Jim has got his squad back fit and that was his problem last year. It's quite simple. He's got a small squad and if you have three or four good players injured then you're really up against it because you can't really replace them. So if Jim's squad stays fit then I'm sure he'll have another good season."