Ronny Deila, the Celtic manager, last night questioned the Scottish champions' rigorous pre-season schedule and admitted that the build-up to a new campaign will be markedly different should he still be at the helm next year.
Deila is already facing a mammoth test of his managerial mettle tonight as his Celtic side try to overturn a 4-1 deficit against Legia Warsaw in the second leg of the Champions League qualifiers at Murrayfield. Celtic's pre-season involved four games in 12 days during a trip to Austria before the Parkhead club embarked on a series of hops around Europe that also took in Germany and Finland, with Champions League qualifiers in Iceland and Poland thrown in.
Deila was left cursing his team's lack of "energy" and "commitment" during last week's calamitous collapse in Warsaw and the Norwegian believes the preparation for the Champions League has to take priority over largely meaningless meanders in an increasing list of friendly encounters that were arranged before he took up the reins.
"Next year it's going to be totally different, yes," insisted Delia. "For me it's a very easy question to answer. The other teams from England who are away are not playing Champions League qualifiers.
"Of course, we can do both but it has to be a decision taken together with the manager. The last one, Neil Lennon, maybe thought differently, I don't know what happened there. But for me, I want it more relaxed. I want to train without travelling too much on long journeys to play matches. It's an important thing. For four weeks you need to prepare very well."
Deila admitted that he has already aired his views on pre-season plans to Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell.
He added: "We talk all the time. With this, something was put together and we had to go through the programme. But next year I will be more involved in what's happening. And I will think it's better for us to do things differently."
Celtic now need to conjure a result that would give Deila the biggest moment of his managerial career thus far. He added: "It would be unbelievable, up there with the best nights of my life. I'm sure it would be for a lot of people also.
"That's the dream. But we need a much better performance now."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article