Celtic's trip to Dubai has left their season in tatters. 

The Hoops spent five nights at the Royal Meridien Beach Resort, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying she was "disappointed and frustrated" by the club's decision to travel in the current climate. 

Neil Lennon, John Kennedy and 13 players were subsequently forced into isolation and missed the game against Hibernian. 

In their absence, Kevin Nisbet scored a 91st-minute equaliser to cast Celtic even further adrift in the title race. They now sit a massive 21 points behind Steven Gerrard's Rangers, albeit with three games in hand. 

Their winter trip has caused outrage not least because, while officials claimed it was for training purposes, staff - including Neil Lennon and Scott Brown - were pictured drinking pints by a swimming pool. 

It didn't look like particularly strenuous work, but rather than apologise, the skipper has now come out and defended his actions. 

p1ers1f4mvem21ql1b18veh11v.jpg

“Everyone is going to question everything - that’s the modern-day era," Brown said in The Scottish Sun. 

"Everyone has a say in everything we do these days. We got the okay from the government and we made sure we followed the guidelines from there.

"We went out and worked hard on training - that’s what the whole thing was for us. People don’t see our training daily or see how hard we worked.

"Sometimes you’re allowed to sit on the sunbeds and have some down-time as well. What we do away from the cameras in training is for us to benefit in games.

"As you’ve seen in the last three or four seasons, we’ve come back from Dubai and done really well because we work extremely hard.

“It’s all about the preparation for the next five or six months of the season."

Celtic fans respond to Brown's comments 

Unfortunately, the "next five or six months of the season" could well be irrelevant now. The 10 in a row dream looks to be firmly dead in the water and unsurprisingly, Brown's comments have therefore drawn criticism on social media. 

Let's take a look at some of the best reaction: 

p1ers15j1iff41fgi1ksc1jsh1hlun.jpg
p1ers15rthbt016j01dv91935akpp.jpg
p1ers161s5g4el7m1bc6mbhh9lr.jpg
p1ers168pd1ddr18t015ig1c9g1fuat.jpg