RONNY Deila last night insisted Celtic have made progress during his time as manager despite their disappointing Champions League exit – and believes qualifying for the Europa League knockout stages is an achievable objective.
The Scottish champions were drawn alongside Ajax of the Netherlands, Fenerbahce of Turkey and Molde of Deila’s native Norway in Group A of the Europa League in Monaco yesterday.
The prospect of facing two of European football’s most famous names is a consolation of sorts for the Glasgow club and their supporters following the 2-0 defeat to Malmo in Sweden on Tuesday evening.
Celtic – who had been leading 3-2 after the first leg of the Champions League play-off - have been subjected to criticism both in the media and from fans in the wake of their capitulation to Age Hareide’s team.
However, the 39-year-old, whose side lost to NK Maribor at the same stage of the continent’s elite club competition last season, is adamant Celtic are a still better side than they were 12 months ago and would benefit from the experience.
“It was a good draw,” he said. “There are some good names and top teams in there. It is going to be exciting. We have a good opportunity to go through, but there are some tough teams in there. We will need to perform well.
“All three are going to be good, but Ajax and Fenerbahce are bigger clubs and they have big supports, so there will be three big clubs in the group. Molde are a good team and have done well in recent seasons and it will be a good challenge for us.
“We didn’t perform as good as we can (against Malmo), everybody has to be agreed on that. Individually and as a team we weren’t at the levels we had been earlier in the season. That is very disappointing, but we have to learn from this. If you saw since last year the performances have been better although on Tuesday we weren’t good enough to get through.”
Meanwhile, Deila has admitted his limited use of the English language was responsible for him describing his Celtic players as “scared” following the reverse to Malmo in the Swedbank Stadium earlier this week.
He said: “I am not born here and maybe my vocabulary is not the best. I felt we were defending something rather than seeing the opportunity to attack something.”
Deila revealed that no firm offer had been tabled for Virgil van Dijk despite speculation linking him with a £10 million move to English Premier League club Southampton before the close of the transfer window next week.
“He (van Dijk) has a contract here and we want to keep him,” said Deila. “We don’t need to sell him. But he is also seeing if these other options could take his career to another level.”
Deila was guarded about Celtic being linked with Ryan Christie, the Inverness Caledonian Thistle midfielder who was named SFWA Young Player of the Year after helping his club win finish third in the Premiership and win the Scottish Cup last season.
“There are different prospects we are looking at now,” he said. “There will be a lot of rumours in the next few days. A lot of things going on. On September 1, then we can sit down and see where we are.”
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