Deila: Things can only get better at Celtic

It will be four months since Ronny Deila was unveiled as the new manager of Celtic on Monday.

In replacing Neil Lennon, the Norwegian became the 19th man to hold the post in the club’s 126-year existence.

If the appointment itself wasn’t a surprise by the time it was announced, the selection of a 38-year-old, comparatively inexperienced candidate from a list of contenders which included Roy Keane, Owen Coyle and Henrik Larsson, certainly was.

Initially offered to Keane as a possible assistant, he was given his chance in a move which cynics dismissed as a cost-cutting, while the club itself trumpeted it as a step towards a bright and energetic future.

A third of a year on, and the man himself is convinced his project to build a dynamic young side, capable of winning through high-tempo, attacking football is on the right track.

“We have had the defeat at Inverness, where we made too just many changes,” said Deila. “The draw with Dundee was just a very bad game, while in the draw against Motherwell we failed to create enough.

“Other than that, there have been some very good performances. We had good spells against Aberdeen and played well against Dundee United.

“We have also had some good away games in Europe, and then we got a satisfying win against Dinamo Zagreb.

“If you look at the teams we have played in Europe Legia Warsaw, Maribor, Salzburg and Zagreb they are all pretty much of a similar level, and you can see that we are getting better results all the time.

“So I believe that shows our fitness is improving. The players are taking on board the message that it is about giving 100% every single day.

“They are pushing themselves in training and in the games themselves, and through this they will get better and better.

“We are very strong on crossing and shooting I see it every day in training so it means we don’t need many chances to score goals.

“If we can get more chances and have more of the play, then we know we have the finishers. We can kill teams off more than we are doing just now.”

Thanks to Thursday night’s win over Zagreb, the Hoops are now handily placed to qualify from their Europa League group.

Typically though, the Norwegian tempers the optimism by reiterating his message that there is always room for improvement.

“It is very important to see behind the results,” he continued. “And when you do that, the conclusion you reach is we will have to improve if we are going to get through the group because up until now we have been a little bit lucky.

“Both Salzburg and Zagreb have had far more chances to score against us in the games than we have had to score ourselves. But we can change that going forward.

“We need to now concentrate on the ties coming up, and on giving our very best so we can see how good we really are.”

The Hoops fans would settle for that.