RONNY DEILA praised his Celtic side as they maintained their seven-point advantage at the top of the SPFL Premiership with a 2-0 home win over Partick Thistle, but insisted he couldn't single out just one as his player of the year.

 

A penalty from Kris Commons, after Thistle's James Craigen was sent off, and a second from Stefan Johansen keeps Celtic on course for a fourth consecutive league title. Johansen, who also captained the side in the absence of the suspended Scott Brown, was again influential and Deila believes his compatriot is getting better week on week.

"Stefan is a good player and he is important for us," said Deila. "He works very hard and communicates well with his team-mates. He did a great job as captain. He has had a good season all along but he is improving all the time. He is very fit and you can see it at the end of the games - he is getting on the end of chances because he is still going when others are starting to get tired.

"Technically he is improving all of the time as well. He can still get better. We have conceded only 14 goals this season and of course a lot of that is down to the defence and goalkeeper.

"But Stefan is one of the pluses in that as well. He works so hard for the team along with Broony and Nir [Bitton] which makes us very solid. He is a good player offensively and defensively."

Johansen will be one of the leading candidates for the player of the year accolades alongside team-mates Brown, Craig Gordon, and Virgil van Dijk. Asking Deila to select one, however, was like asking a parent to pick a favourite child.

"There are many good players at Celtic," he added. "The best players in Scotland have been here but it's up to others to pick the player of the year. It's hard for me to do it - and it's not right. Stefan is one of the ones doing very well but there are a lot of them. People can talk about Craig, Virgil, Jason [Denayer], Broony and Nir. It's up to others to pick."

Deila coudn't put a price on Johansen, revealing he wants his young players to stay together and grow as a unit.

"I don't want to think about it as Stefan being one of our biggest assets in terms of money," added the manager. "I want to think that we have a good player. We want to build the team around players like him - Nir, Jamesie [Forrest] and Virgil. We have young players coming up. They can be better and can improve. We just have to keep them here and continue to develop them and fight hard to get onto the European stage."

Thistle had repelled Celtic's best efforts until they conceded the penalty in the 44th minute, an incident that led to Craigen being sent off. Manager Alan Archibald had no gripes with the award.

"I've not watched it back yet but at the time I thought it was a penalty," he admitted. "It's one of those rules that you hope they will change as you get penalised twice, once for losing a man and then for the goal."