Cruise Control

- Mark Henderson & Tony Connelly

SCOTT Brown asserted that the 4-0 win over Rangers in the Scottish Cup semi-final illustrated Celtic’s superiority over the Ibrox side and said that the Scottish champions’ desire to win every game was motivated by belief as well as confidence.

The Hoops captain dictated proceedings at Hampden on Sunday as Celtic dismantled Rangers to book their place in next month’s Scottish Cup final against Motherwell.

For Brown, Celtic were never going to leave the National Stadium with anything other than a convincing victory.

“It was outstanding from start to finish,” he said. “We dominated the game. We knew as soon as we got the ball down on a half-decent pitch, with the speed we move the ball and our formation, that Rangers wouldn’t know how to adapt and deal with it.

“They tried to close up the middle of the park, but our two full-backs are fantastic on the ball so I don’t know why they wanted to do that. We managed to get up the park and created the chances by the amount of time we had on the ball.