Celtic manager Gordon Strachan will not to be too hard on midfielder Scott Brown after his blunder against Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Parkhead led to a fraught ending to their 2-1 victory.
Goals by Scott McDonald and Georgios Samaras, the second on the hour mark, looked to have put the game beyond the Highlanders.
But 10 minutes later Caley striker Marius Niculae took advantage of Brown's misplaced pass to pull a goal back, ensuring a nervy last 20 minutes for the Clydesdale Bank Premier League champions, who remain four points behind SPL leaders Rangers.
The blunder came a week after defender Gary Caldwell's high-profile mistake cost Celtic a goal in their home Champions League defeat by Barcelona.
Strachan admits two points could have been lost against Caley but stressed he cannot legislate for unforced errors.
He said: "It's always possible you could lose two points if you give a goal away like we did.
"If you do that then there is the possibility that something strange will happen but we stood firm.
"But I'm not going to stick bamboo shoots up his (Brown's) fingernails. It's something that you have to deal with.
"Please come up to the training ground and tell me how I can stop things like that. That was a pass that you would expect most people to make but we've all done it.
"Gary Caldwell made one last week and Artur Boruc, probably one of the best goalkeepers in the world, threw two in at Easter Road.
"That happens. Lucky enough we had enough goals that it didn't cost us. But apart from that, for 70 minutes I liked what I saw."
McDonald scored his 25th goal of the season and warned the rest of the SPL he is looking to add to his impressive tally.
However, the former Motherwell player knows they will all count for nothing if they lose out to Rangers in the title race.
He said: "It's just another goal to me.
"That's 25 now but like I said before, I owe a lot to my team-mates, who put in great balls for me, and there was another one from Shunsuke Nakamura.
"There's a lot of games to go and so I'm certainly not finished.
"It's great personal achievement but when you score goals you want to be remembered for scoring these goals in championship-winning teams and hopefully we can do that."
Caley player-manager Craig Brewster insisted his side were "superb" and claimed they had Celtic panicking in the final stages.
He said: "When you come here you expect them to have most of the ball but we stuck to the game plan.
"When Nakamura whipped in the free-kick for their first goal I thought 'where did that come from'?
"I thought we had weathered the storm at the start of the second half and I thought we did well to push Aiden McGeady back.
"But he put a cross in and Samaras bulleted a header past Fraser.
"Marius reacted to a mistake to slot the ball away and we are back in it.
"At the end of the game Celtic players were kicking the ball the way they were facing."
But 10 minutes later Caley striker Marius Niculae took advantage of Brown's misplaced pass to pull a goal back, ensuring a nervy last 20 minutes for the Clydesdale Bank Premier League champions, who remain four points behind SPL leaders Rangers.
The blunder came a week after defender Gary Caldwell's high-profile mistake cost Celtic a goal in their home Champions League defeat by Barcelona.
Strachan admits two points could have been lost against Caley but stressed he cannot legislate for unforced errors.
He said: "It's always possible you could lose two points if you give a goal away like we did.
"If you do that then there is the possibility that something strange will happen but we stood firm.
"But I'm not going to stick bamboo shoots up his (Brown's) fingernails. It's something that you have to deal with.
"Please come up to the training ground and tell me how I can stop things like that. That was a pass that you would expect most people to make but we've all done it.
"Gary Caldwell made one last week and Artur Boruc, probably one of the best goalkeepers in the world, threw two in at Easter Road.
"That happens. Lucky enough we had enough goals that it didn't cost us. But apart from that, for 70 minutes I liked what I saw."
McDonald scored his 25th goal of the season and warned the rest of the SPL he is looking to add to his impressive tally.
However, the former Motherwell player knows they will all count for nothing if they lose out to Rangers in the title race.
He said: "It's just another goal to me.
"That's 25 now but like I said before, I owe a lot to my team-mates, who put in great balls for me, and there was another one from Shunsuke Nakamura.
"There's a lot of games to go and so I'm certainly not finished.
"It's great personal achievement but when you score goals you want to be remembered for scoring these goals in championship-winning teams and hopefully we can do that."
Caley player-manager Craig Brewster insisted his side were "superb" and claimed they had Celtic panicking in the final stages.
He said: "When you come here you expect them to have most of the ball but we stuck to the game plan.
"When Nakamura whipped in the free-kick for their first goal I thought 'where did that come from'?
"I thought we had weathered the storm at the start of the second half and I thought we did well to push Aiden McGeady back.
"But he put a cross in and Samaras bulleted a header past Fraser.
"Marius reacted to a mistake to slot the ball away and we are back in it.
"At the end of the game Celtic players were kicking the ball the way they were facing."
Copyright (c) Press Association
Related Articles
Meet the last Aussie standing at Celtic
It's a Kewell-Hutchinson double act at post-Muscat Marinos
