If Scott Brown Gets The Sunderland Job, That Might Be The Start Of The Road Back To Celtic.

The news yesterday that Scott Brown is being considered for the job at Sunderland may or may not lead somewhere. It might be speculation or there might be something in it. I hope there’s something in it. For ages now the talk has been that Scott Brown and Celtic are a match made in heaven and there is a certain inevitability to his winding up manager here.

But as everyone reading knows, for years the media believed the same thing about Steven Gerrard and Liverpool, and that was a ridiculous idea and is now seen for one. Great captains do not automatically become great managers. It’s a different skill-set and the only way to know if someone has that potential is to see them tested in a tough environment.

Brown started small. That was smart. It would have been better for him to have avoided that calamity of a season at Aberdeen working under Stephen Glass, but he did okay for himself at Fleetwood. Not earth-shattering, and the club was a shambles and that made life difficult for him. But he impressed people. He got his name out there.

Sunderland, or a job like it, would properly future-proof him from any claim that he lacked the experience to be Celtic boss. That’s a tough environment, and if he can do something good there we won’t be the only club looking at him with interest for some day in the future.

It might be far in the future; Brown, even at Sunderland, might not do enough to become a genuine contender for the Celtic job. But it will be more experience, at a better level, than Lennon had even after he came back for his second spell in charge.

Brown would need that experience if he was to even stand a chance of getting the Celtic job and that decision meeting with broad acceptance amongst the support. Anything else, and he’d be dicing with death right from the start; our fans would find it hard to tolerate another Lennon style risk based on a guy’s name. With that experience behind him though, and a record of success or overachievement, the job would be within reach and the name alone might make it his to lose.

I can only wish him well if he’s really going for this job. It’s a huge one, with awesome responsibilities and a high profile. If he gets it then he’s got a superb opportunity to stamp his mark on a club which will hail him as a hero if he’s successful and where he can massively enhance his managerial reputation and grow his CV.

That puts him firmly on our radar for the future, and you know what? I’d love to see him pull it off. I’d love to see him go there, succeed and then stake his claim for the big job at Celtic Park. He has the right attitude for the job. He has the club in his bones.