RONNY Deila will get his first exposure to the challenge that faces Celtic in this month's Europa League tie with Inter Milan when he watches the under-pressure Italian side in their own backyard tonight.
The Celtic manager will be among the audience in the San Siro Stadium when Inter take on Palermo at home in Serie A, a match manager Roberto Mancini needs to win to quell some of the criticism after three defeats in a row. Inter are currently 13th in the league and were knocked out of the Italian Cup last Wednesday by Napoli.
Deila was able to use Celtic's early kick-off at Dens Park as the ideal opportunity to catch a flight to Italy and get his first look at Inter before they arrive at Celtic Park on February 19 for the first leg of the last 32 tie.
"Yeah, we're going to watch them," said Deila. I will go to watch them on Sunday. I visited Manchester City when he [Mancini] was there as well so I spoke to him one time. He is a professional and has a very clear style of playing. He has done well when he has been a manager and he is a winner."
Ironically, Mancini has sought to repair Inter's porous defence by bringing one of the many unwanted players from Newcastle United. Davide Santon will make his San Siro bow in front of Deila just days after he was shipped out of Newcastle, while five of his colleagues went to Rangers.
Now 24, Santon left Inter to join Newcastle but has played just once this season. "I come back a more experienced player after the last three-and-a-half years," he said. "I made nearly 100 appearances in England, despite not playing for around nine months due to injury. I'm here to compete."
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