CELTIC manager, Ronny Deila, said the Premiership might not have a title race at all this season if his team maintains the form which blitzed Motherwell 4-0 at Parkhead.

 

The champions returned to the top of the table by moving a point clear of Aberdeen, and also with a game in hand, and Deila said his players were good enough to meet every challenge facing them in the remaining 17 league games.

"We want to be number one and now everything is in our hands," he said. "If we win the rest of the games, we are champions. Even though we know there are so many games left, we just have to keep performing like today and winning games and we will see at the end of the season if it's a race or not.

"Celtic can win every game they play in Scotland - every game. We are favourites whoever we meet, wherever we meet them."

Aberdeen will return to the top if they beat St Johnstone on Friday and Celtic now face Ross County on Saturday before the Old Firm League Cup semi-final on February 1. They also face Dundee in the Scottish Cup and Inter Milan in the Europa League in a pivotal month in their season.

Mikael Lustig scored twice on his comeback from a hamstring injury, with Virgil van Dijk and Leigh Griffiths also on target. "We have a lot of players back and there are a lot of big games coming up, so that's good. I am more comfortable now before games, I feel more safe and I trust the team more than I did before. It is the second part of the season. If you are a player at Celtic and you see what we can achieve then of course you step up, because we can win everything. That's very, very exciting. It was very professional and hard-working through the whole match.

"I'm happy for the defenders: three goals today. I'm very impressed in what Mikael does, how quickly he adapts when he comes back from injury. He's very important to the team."

Motherwell have now lost four consecutive games under new manager Ian Baraclough, who had initially won his first two. "We worked hard to try and contain and get the ball back but we weren't good enough when we won the ball," he said. "We gave it away too cheaply. We contributed to our own downfall. We're not kidding ourselves, we're part of that group of three [with St Mirren and Ross County] fighting for our lives." Keith Lasley has a broken toe but Baraclough hoped to make another signing to follow Stephen Pearson into the club.