Scott Brown urges Celtic to kick on after cup semi-final win over Aberdeen

Scott Brown wants Celtic to build on Sunday’s impressive William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final win over Aberdeen.

First-half goals from Ryan Christie and Mohamed Elyounoussi gave the Hoops their first victory in five matches and booked their place in next month’s final against Hearts with a chance to win the cup for an unprecedented fourth successive time.

Neil Lennon’s side are back in Europa League action against Sparta Prague at Celtic Park on Thursday before travelling to Fir Park three days later to face Motherwell in the Premiership and the Hoops skipper wants to keep the levels high.

He said: “It was a great performance against Aberdeen and we have to build on it and make sure we keep playing his way and keep this momentum going.

“For us, it’s about making sure we get those improvements and keep building on them weekly.

“We have to look forward now, we have a huge game coming up during the week.

“It’s about kicking on now. We’ll look to take this into Thursday and try and build on that from Thursday to Sunday.

“I thought we were excellent in the first half. We moved the ball really well and looked more like what we are used to doing.

“We managed to score two great goals and we could have scored a couple more in the first half against a good Aberdeen team who were very organised.

“In the second half, Aberdeen were throwing people forward but the main thing was we defended really well as a team from back to front and managed to keep a clean sheet.

“It’s not just the defence, it’s the whole team. It starts at the front, there’s always a way we can stop it at its source. It’s not just about who puts it in the net, it’s about how we defend as a team from the front all the way to the back.”