Twenty’s plenty. Deila eyes another romp to the title
CELTIC were looking out the sun cream and flip flops as 2015 began, preparing to jet out to Gran Canaria to plot the storming second half to the season which propelled them to Premiership glory. Twelve months on, the most glamorous tourist location the club will check out during the month is Stranraer, but in every other way Ronny Deila feels confident of putting some distance between his team and the rest of the division.
As is the case this morning, there was nothing between the Parkhead side and their main rivals as the year opened. A 2-0 victory on New Year’s Day against St Johnstone at Pittodrie moved Aberdeen a point clear at the top, with victories against Motherwell and St Mirren stretching that gap, albeit having played two games more, by the time the Parkhead side returned to business following their Spanish sojourn. There were dire predictions that the optional winter break would backfire on Celtic and Aberdeen’s lead would prove impossible to overturn.
Let’s just say that things didn’t quite work out that way. While Aberdeen faltered, despite adding the likes of Kenny McLean, Deila bolstered his options with the arrivals of Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven and the club promptly rattled through their remaining 20 Premiership fixtures, losing just once and drawing twice. Another Aberdeen slip-up meant the title was Celtic’s with three games to spare and Deila would dearly love the intrigue surrounding the destination of the 2015-16 title to dissipate in a similarly underwhelming fashion.
“Going to Spain in January was good for us because after we came back we went to a new level,” recalled Deila. “We were very good over that period. We brought in some good players and became even better as a team.
“I think we looked very solid in the last part of the season and that’s something we want to do now,” he added. “We had both the ability and the mentality but the squad had been together for six months and the team became settled. We also had a very good defence which was hard to break down. We hardly conceded five goals throughout the whole of spring so it was very good. Offensively we started to click better, too, and that made the big difference.”
An enforced two-week winter break will be introduced for top flight clubs as of January 2017 in any case – but why, the media demanded to know, was no more winter sun being factored in this year? Instead, Celtic will travel to Stair Park in mid January in the Scottish Cup, with a Hampden showdown against Ross County in the League Cup semi-finals at the end of the month another date in the diary. They have two games in hand on Aberdeen, against Hamilton and Dundee, to be slotted in to the schedule.
“We don’t have any European games now so that was a factor,” said Deila. “We talked about it and decided we’d prefer to stay here and just play the games. There has been ‘good’ weather here too – no snow – so it’s been fine. It’s been grey but not so much wind. But we have more control of our squad now and can rest more than we could last year, so it’s been a good decision.”
Having kept his players in Scotland during the pre-season to build up to the Champions League qualifiers, Deila envisages something similar this time round. Hopefully with more positive results. “I think pre-season worked very well how we did it this year and we’ll go with something similar next summer,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll have won the league and will start back on the same dates.”
While Celtic’s budget dwarfs that of Aberdeen, their budget is the envy of the rest of the Premiership. There is an argument that the north-east side deserve greater criticism for their failure to capitalise on Celtic’s weaknesses and Deila feels the Parkhead club will always be subjected to greater scrutiny.
“I haven’t followed how much criticism you are giving to them,” said Deila. “But Celtic is Celtic. It’s about the history and we have unbelievable supporters – it’s a massive club. But, having said that, Aberdeen are much bigger than a lot of the other clubs as well.
“They have pace,” he added. “They have consistency. And they have added good players. So they should grow as we should do here at Celtic and everyone else as well. You need to improve all the time and find small things to get better at. Aberdeen have done a lot of things we did and they really need to have the belief you can do it and stay in the race a lot. It is about experience.”