Deila says Roberts had a player up his a**e all night

Ronny Deila admitted he would liked Patrick Roberts to have been involved more last night but the winger had a man up his a**e all night.

The 19-year-old scored twice at the weekend for Celtic as they coasted past Hearts but three days later they struggled to open up a resilient Dundee side.

Roberts was the bright spark once again in the Hoops jersey, but couldn’t create or the decisive goal in the game.

Speaking after the game, Deila was frustrated by the performance at Dens Park by his team and wanted more from them.

As quoted by STV, he said:

We maybe could have got the ball to Patrick more but, having said that, there was one player standing up his a**e all the time. We should have exploited the space he was creating for us, though.

We should have created more clear-cut chances.

The last pass and the effectiveness when we first had the ball was not good enough.

Deila did take a positive from the fact that Celtic now have seven clean sheets in their last ten games, conceding just three goals.

Defensively we played quite well. They had a couple of chances but we had a good goalkeeper in Craig [Gordon].

We’re still in a good position. We have to make ourselves ready for Motherwell on Saturday and work really hard to get the three points there.

It’s always disappointing to lose points but there are a lot of games left and we just have to keep on going. Everything is up to ourselves.

Having moved on loan from Manchester City to the league champions, Roberts has taken his opportunity and impressed fans already.

He will be at Celtic until next summer, giving him plenty of game time to develop further and maximise the benefits of his time in Glasgow.

Celtic moved five points clear of Aberdeen however the gap could be reduced to just two points before the Hoops play Motherwell at Paradise on Saturday.