Deila says Celtic were unfortunate

Manager Ronny Deila believes Celtic were unfortunate not to have a bigger lead over Malmo after the first-leg of the Champions league playoff.

Speaking after the game, as reported by BBCSport Deila said:

You get disappointed that you feel you could get something more,” the Norwegian reflected on the game.

They scored on almost the two chances they had. But we have to see out the two legs, and they have to beat us in Malmo to get through.

Celtic looked on course to sail through to the group stages after scoring two goals in the opening 10 minutes. Griffiths opened the scoring after a fantastic ball through by Johansen and Bitton nodded home the second from the Norwegian’s corner.

Griffiths headed home a third however, former Hoops flop Berget came back to haunt Deila’s men as he netted twice either side of Griffiths second goal in the second-half to leave the tie on a knife-edge ahead of the return leg next Tuesday.

It could be better but it’s an OK result. I think we played well in the first half, especially in the start of the game, we were all over them and scored two great goals.

So, of course it was a little bit disappointing in the end but I have a very good belief we can do it in Malmo.

We are ahead one goal and we were ahead when we faced Qarabag [in the third qualifying round] and we defended very well down there, so we can do both things.

Two players going in the same challenge and it bounced down.

It’s small details. The second was something we should have cleared out, we had enough people in the box to take out those two players.

One major blow for Celtic tonight was the sight of Mikael Lustig being stretchered off with just over 10 minutes left in the game. The prospect of Ambrose starting in his place next Tuesday is far from appealing.

I haven’t talked with him yet, but of course it doesn’t look well,” added Deila.

We’ll have to see how serious it is – he’s a good, important player for us, and we’ll see tomorrow how bad it is.