RYAN CHRISTIE believes that Scott Brown deserves a statue outside Celtic Park for his achievements with the club.

The Celtic captain announced this week that he would be leaving the club in the summer after 14 trophy-laden years in Glasgow to take up a player/assistant manager role at Aberdeen.

Christie has nothing but positive things to say about his skipper, and thinks he has earned a tribute that has so far been reserved for Celtic founder Brother Walfrid, legendary manager Jock Stein, European Cup winning captain Billy McNeill and the player voted the greatest ever Celt, Jimmy Johnstone.

“It was obviously rumoured and he was keeping his cards close to his chest,” Christie said.

“He has done so well over the years and look at the age of him now and this season he has been quality again. “I get to see him train and for the age he is and the years he has been playing at the top level he is just incredible.

“There probably aren’t enough positive things I can say about him. From now until the end of the season everybody will be talking about him. Even when he steps away from Celtic nobody can say a bad word about him.

“It will probably deserve a statue outside Celtic Park because he is one of the biggest legends to play for the club.

“The amount of times people have written him off. They said that when Brendan Rodgers came in and he was rejuvenated and came again.

“To be consistently good like that throughout your career is remarkable and players like that don’t come along too often.”

As well as missing his presence on the park, Christie believes it will be difficult for Celtic to replace Brown’s influence off the field, where he is the first to welcome new recruits into the fold, for instance.

“He is quality,” he said. “Everybody says that when you come in.

“The first thing he looks for is hard work and you need to win his respect.

“He sets the standards in training every day and week in and week out. If you get his respect, then he is quality with you.”