Deila ready for war in ‘cup-final’

Manager Ronny Deila is fired up and ready for Celtic’s 90-minute showdown with Malmo to decide who will be advancing to this year’s Champions League group stages.

Having first caught Celtic’s eye in the Scandinavia with some incredible work at Norwegian side Stromsgodset – it’s only fitting he returns to the stage that gives him the chance to achieve his biggest managerial feat to date.

As reported by the BBC, Deila spoke ahead of the match in Sweden saying:

It is like a final,” he said. “If we get through, we have reached one of our goals this season.

If you don’t have nerves in games like this, you have to do something else. It is very good to have a little bit of nerves, but no fear.

Celtic will be looking to hold on to a slender one-goal lead from the first leg after the 3-2 victory in Paradise. A brace from Leigh Griffiths and Nir Bitton header but two goals from former Hoops flop Berget has put the tie on a knife-edge.

But Deila believes Celtic are the better side and will hope to prove that against the Swedish champions.

We showed at Celtic Park that we are a better team than Malmo.

We know that the quality we have in our team is enough when we are at our best,” he said.

We won at the weekend and rested a lot of players and we have the perfect build-up to this game.

Deila was also asked questions about the future of Dutch centre-back Virgil Van Dijk ahead of the game and made his intentions clear about what he wants to happen to the 24-year-old.

We don’t need to sell Virgil,” the Norwegian stated.

I have said that a thousand times and I am tired of talking about him. He is still a Celtic player and hopefully he’ll be that for a long, long time.