Deila's dream team coming together

The Norwegian claims not to be a 'system guy' but if his start to life in Scottish football has been characterised by anything it is a slavish belief in a 4-2-3-1 shape which places huge emphasis on tempo, pressing and fitness. Last year's player of the year, Kris Commons, was effectively sidelined because he doesn't quite fit, while some early season results were patchy as he attempted to shoe-horn it onto an apparently unsure or reluctant group of players. The remedy has been simple: recruit eager young players who buy in completely and for whom it is second nature.

It was somehow appropriate that the match should have been presaged by big screen highlights of the Lisbon Lions defeating Helenio Herrera's catenaccio tactics back in 1967. This, after all, was a different blueprint from the one which some Scottish managers have used in continental football in recent times. Possession has often been a dirty word, a dangerous thing to trust your players with. Walter Smith made 'anti-football' a blessing on Rangers' run to the Uefa Cup final in 2008, while Neil Lennon masterminded the defeat of Barcelona on the scraps of just 34% of the play.

Okay so it is easy to forget Celtic conceded three away goals - ironically, their prospects of qualification might have actually been enhanced by one of those old school defensive efforts in a goalless draw - but at least two of these were uncharacteristic mis-steps from Craig Gordon. The general run of play allows Celtic to travel to Milan on Thursday in the hope of taking one of the more notably scalps in the club's recent history and moving into the last 16 of the competition. The Parkhead side had 438 passes compared to Inter's 467, representing 48% of the play, and no-one did more in this regard than Nir Bitton, the Israeli midfielder who is emerging as their metronome.

The dream remains alive. But Bitton admits that after 13 minutes, this was Nightmare on Kerrydale Street. "When you play against a team like Inter Milan, and you are down 2-0 in 15 minutes sometimes you can already be knocked out," the Israeli said. "You have to start the game again at 2-0 and it is a nightmare. So I am so happy we scored two goals in a minute which changed the game. We are looking forward for next week now. In one game anything is possible."

Bitton continues to produce his best work in front of Roberto Mancini, a man who would have signed him for Manchester City were it not for work permit problems. "When you play against a big team like Inter away of course you will not come and open the game, and try to score two or three goals," said Bitton. "We will play our game. If you keep the clean sheet then everything will be fine.

"But there is much difference between 3-3 and 3-2," he added. "If we had lost 3-2 then we have to win by two goals. We just want to rest now. Although we have a difficult game against Hamilton on Sunday, the main game is next week. If we can come into it ready, then I believe we can do it."

For Deila, hoarding possession is both a means of winning matches and developing players. Unlike other Celtic managers before him, he sees no reason why he shouldn't go toe-to-toe with teams such as Inter. "Have they tried anything else?" said Deila. "I don't know. If you only defend then you don't develop them in my opinion.

"I know the best teams and if you see the small teams going through as well they have a system that they really believe in and play," he added. "I've seen Rosenborg do it before. You also have Viktoria Plzen from Czech Republic and I saw them play against City, very offensive. The Portuguese teams do it many times, Ajax do it, so it's possible. You have to believe in a style and my goal is also to try to get a Celtic style of playing. But I'm not doing this for romance, I'm doing this to get results."

While Thursday was a night of new heights for Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven, previous history has in fact taught both everything they need to know about the exalted standards required on European away nights. Having excelled in a 2-2 Europa League qualifying draw with Dinamo Moscow at Tannadice in August 2012 - manager Peter Houston hailed Mackay-Steven as a £15m man after outshining Dinamo's big money signing Balazs Dzsudzsak - United fell to earth rather spectacularly in a 5-0 second leg defeat in Russia.

"United had a good first leg and we went out to attack them over there and that backfired a little bit and it ended up being not a pleasant night for us," said Mackay-Steven. "If we can cut out errors and not let Inter have too many chances we have more than enough to go over there and get a result."

If that is to be the case, a repeat of the apprehensiveness which took hold of Celtic's back four early in the game will be unforgivable. For all their reputations, Jason Denayer and Virgil van Dijk are still young players, and they appeared seriously jumpy in the opening stages when attempting to use possession progressively whilst being pressed by the likes of Rodrigo Palacio, Mauro Icardi and Xherdan Shaqiri. Throw into the equation the fact that full backs Emilio Izaguirre and Adam Matthews - although the latter in particular came onto a storming game - are not the biggest talkers in the world, and Ronny Deila was musing this week about the need to find an experienced central defender to talk, organise and lead at the back.

"I think they [Van Dijk and Denayer] need matches like this," Deila said. "They're both young, very talented, and there's a lot of attention on them when they play these games. There are twenty clubs coming to watch them. So it's mentally tough, especially for young players.

"We have to bring that [leadership qualities] out of them. It's also something to look for when we're brining players - a leadership style. Virgil has stepped up in that way, he's much better than he's been, but he's still young. So to have an experienced central defender could be a good thing. But if I had to choose I would stick with those two I have and not bring anybody in because they have the future in front of them." If Celtic are to keep Internazionale quiet in the San Siro on Thursday night, their defenders must find their voice.