JO Inge Berget last night savoured his two crucial away goals at his old stomping ground of Celtic Park and insisted that he will be keeping his lucky beard for the second leg in Malmo just in case. Celtic travel to the Swedbank Stadion for Tuesday’s return match with a precarious first leg advantage after a double from Leigh Griffiths and a Nir Bitton header were eaten into by a fine Berget double, the last of which arrived with almost the final kick of the game. They were exploits glimpsed only rarely during the Norway international’s six month loan spell at Parkhead and gave Malmo a huge boost in momentum at a crucial moment. Not only did the Swedes rack up a 3-0 second leg win to overhaul a two-goal deficit on Austrian side FC Salzburg in the previous round, they can welcome back Enoch Adu and captain Markus Rosenberg after suspension for the second match.

“I scored two goals so of course it feels good to score always,” he said. “But the goals were a little bit extra for me because I didn't do well here. I don't feel any sympathy for Ronny! Of course I didn't do as well as I was hoping in a Celtic shirt but it wasn't like I was trying to prove them wrong. I don't know if it was anything to do with the magic of the beard but I am not going to cut it off before the second game!

“I would say the tie is pretty open now," he added. "We have been very good at home, especially in Europe but it is true that Celtic can hold a lead. A draw is good enough for them, we need to win, so it is open, I wouldn't say we are big favourites.

“We have got two away goals so it is in our hands. We just have to win. We have a great support at home as do Celtic. For the first 10 minutes it seemed like we didn't really want to be there. But I felt like we stepped up after that. In the last five minutes we desperately needed a goal, and they were happy at 3-1. Of course it was a massive feeling for us to get that goal and a massive blow for the Celtic players.”

Berget’s status as the revelation of the evening stole some of the thunder from Leigh Griffiths, whose two goals in the night typified an evening where he revelled on the European stage. He got the ball rolling after just three minutes with a composed close-range finish, then climbed magnificently to send in a looping header which gave Celtic an advantage which at the time seemed unassailable. The striker, who turns 25 today, said he was delighted to have given his manager a dilemma ahead of the second leg. Deila had previously started Nadir Ciftci in the four previous European ties.

“There are mixed emotions in the dressing room just now,” said Griffiths. “We’ve won the game but two away goals is tough to giveaway. We feel we should’ve had a more commanding lead. We controlled most of the game and yet now they have two away goals. I don’t know where the ref got five minutes of injury time, that’s beyond me.

“The boys are saying they’d played over that by the time their corner had come in," he added. "Then it was just a lack of concentration at the back, someone lost their man and Jo’s put it away. The game couldn’t have started better for me. I got the nod and then just three minutes in I repaid the manager. I’m still confident we can go over there and get a result. Malmo still need to come out and attack us. They will try to do to us what we did to them at the start of this game. But we’re still in front in this tie and if we draw over there we’re through.

“I feel I proved tonight I can score at any level and I’ve given the manager a selection headache for next Tuesday night, whether he goes again with me or Nadir. We’ll see. Whoever he chooses will try and deliver the right performance.”

Craig Gordon, whose goal was breached twice on the night, called for a stern defensive performance in the second match. “The dressing room isn’t a happy place. Losing that goal was a sore one to take but we are still in the lead in the tie and that is the main thing. We have to take the positives although it would have been nicer to go there with a two goal lead.”