FOUNDATIONS NOW IN PLACE
Gamble pays off as Deila delivers Double and wins over fans
ON the day Jose Mourinho delivered an English Premier League title for Chelsea, the Norwegian media focused their attentions a little further north. ‘The Special Ron’ roared a front-page headline reporting Ronny Deila’s first Scottish Premiership title as manager of Celtic. In Scotland, the praise was a little more restrained. Much of it followed by an ‘ah but…’
Celtic’s fourth successive title should come as a surprise to no one. Their resources are superior to other clubs, their wage-bill the highest in Scotland. They should win the league.
Yet the recent past shows instances where being a shark in a tadpole pool was no protection against humiliation.
As Celtic manager, John Barnes was a disaster, Tony Mowbray a fish out of water.
Even the man who picked Deila, chief executive Peter Lawwell, acknowledged yesterday the appointment of the Norwegian was a ‘risk’.
Originally earmarked as Neil Lennon’s assistant manager, the former Stromsgodset boss had never managed a club of the magnitude of Celtic. He was handed a posse of unconvincing loan signings and, in Lawwell’s words, encountered a ‘s***storm’ in his opening weeks in the job.
The Champions League qualifiers were a disaster. Two games against Legia Warsaw were best watched through the cracks of the fingers.
Maribor likewise. Further proof, if it were needed, that the club with the biggest budget won’t always come through.
Domestically, Celtic lost 10 points in their first eight league games. They became the first side to lose to Hamilton Accies at Parkhead for 76 years. By October, Deila was being spoken of as another Mowbray. Another Paul le Guen.
Whispers of dressing-room unrest began. His existing backroom staff were supplemented by the arrival of a raft of new faces from Norway. Results were mixed and the rigid adherence to a 4-2-3-1 formation a source of bewilderment
It’s easy now to say Celtic were always going to win the league. Not until a comeback win over Aberdeen in November did it look like it. A January trip to Gran Canaria built bridges between management and players. The improvement since has been marked.
I t was never a procession because the Dons refused to collapse . The Pittodrie side are now j ust one point short of the highest-ever tally by a non - Old Firm side in the history of t he Premiership and the gap between first and second in th e SPFL is t wo points less th an that between Chelsea and Manchester City. Those who argue Celtic had ‘nothing to beat’ do Derek McInnes and his side a disservice.
Even so, there is relief from senior figures at Parkhead that the fallback option for Henrik Larsson and Roy Keane came through a testing first season.
‘Clearly, as part of my job, you need to be aware of what’s going on in the football world and we knew about Ronny and what he had and what he achieved and the skills and attributes he had,’ said Lawwell yesterday. ‘So when we were looking for a manager he was on the list.
‘We met him and he was very, very impressive and although some would think we took a risk — which we probably did — we felt he was an ideal candidate for Celtic and he fitted really well with our strategy. Which i s to create a winning, entertaining football team, to create football players, to create a team, a backroom staff and develop players — and he has been fantastic.
‘So he has done remarkably well, I’m really confident for the future that, after his first year, he now has a foundation.
‘He’s a winner, he’s a champion and there will be a really solid foundation to take this magnificent club forward.’
The next test for Deila is the biggest. The Celtic board of directors took much of the flak for their transfer policy following the Champions League fiasco.
With his team and his methods now in place, the ball will be placed at Deila’s feet in July. The way in which he has t ur ned t hi ngs around has convinced his assistant John Collins it can be different this time.
‘Ronny deserves enormous credit,’ he said. ‘We didn’t get off to a great start and it added to the pressure.
‘People can write you off very quickly in football but he kept believing and stuck to his principles. There was huge attention on him So all credit to him. Ronny has proved to himself that his methods work and that will be the most satisfying thing.’
Importantly, Deila has won over the Celtic fanbase. His post-match, f i st- pumping celebrations are stage-managed, but play well to the galleries. His style of football, effective in a 5- 0 thrashing of Dundee on Friday night, has also won admirers.
For Celtic, the growing bond between manager and fans is a bonus. Lawwell pointed out yesterday that the club have the third largest season-ticket base in t he United Kingdom behind Manchester United and Arsenal. Yet that’s rarely reflected in the numbers who turn up for home matches.
Deila’s greatest challenge is to improve that situation via winning football and a place in the Champions League group stage.
‘Ronny’s got a fantastic, engaging personality and our fans are seeing that,’ added Lawwell. ‘It’s an intelligent group of supporters — you can’t kid them.’
Few will be kidded into believe the club’s 46th Scottish league title, delivered after Dundee United’s victory over Aberdeen, is the greatest in their history. But neither is it cause for an apology or an asterisk.