YOU LACK BELIEF
Deila declares Dons title no-hopers until they think big
RONNY DEILA says Aberdeen have no chance of ending Celtic’s grip on the title unless they believe in themselves.
The faltering Dons blew another opportunity to return to the top of the SPFL Premiership by drawing 0-0 with Partick Thistle on Wednesday.
Manager Derek McInnes insists his players deserve credit rather than criticism for their efforts to keep pace with a club with a bigger budget.
But Parkhead boss Deila says the Dons are a ‘huge’ club who should embrace the challenge of ending 30 years without a championship triumph.
‘I think Aberdeen is a very big club,’ said the Norwegian. ‘After Celtic and Rangers they are huge. They are not smaller than the big clubs in Norway.
‘They have 20,000 people watching them, they are a big, big club. So I can’t see why they shouldn’t go for trophies.
‘The title, everything — cups as well. Everything is possible. History has shown that they can do it. They have done it before.’
Bemused by the trend for Scottish managers to talk down their teams’ chances — publicly at least — the under-fire Celtic boss has been caught short with some of his predictions for his own team.
Of the view Aberdeen, Hearts
and the others must believe they can win the league to make it happen, however, the Norwegian explained: ‘There is no point going around saying: “I can be number four.” Who remembers that? ‘It’s all about winning things. ‘Everything is possible in football. ‘In Norway at Stromsgodset we won the Cup first. We took silverware and then there was a new step. ‘In the end we made it and it was a great achievement but Stromsgodset are not even close to being as big as Aberdeen. ‘And for me there are a lot of other clubs — Hearts is a very big club as well. They are in a big city and so are Aberdeen. So I can’t see why they should be so unbelievably different.’ Deila hopes and believes his team’s greater experience of dealing with expectation and grinding out results will pay dividends as they move into the second half of the season Level on points with two games in hand after the Dons failed to take their chance to leapfrog the champions, Deila said of Wednesday’s result: ‘I’ve been in football too long, nothing is surprising. You can see all over Europe that it is hard to keep consistency and keep winning. It’s important to see that sometimes. It’s not just a case of just putting boots on the pitch and getting three points. You have to really work and have a good performance. ‘So I’m not surprised at anything. What’s important is that we have to keep focused on what we are going to do. We have to get our three points against Partick Thistle now.’ Comfortable with the decision to stay at home in January after last year’s jaunt to Gran Canaria, he added: ‘We don’t have any European games now so that was a factor. We talked about it and decided we’d prefer to stay here and just play the games, ‘We have more control of our squad now and can rest more than we could last year.’ Meanwhile, Aston Villa boss Remi Garde claims Celtic are interested in out-of-favour Czech striker Libor Kozak. Deila watched him score twice in an Under-21 game and Garde said: ‘Libor has been asked about at least once for a club wanting him on loan. Libor has the possibility to leave if he wants. It could be a permanent move. I have heard about this link between Celtic and Libor but it’s more down to him.’