‘I guess I sold the club to Rodgers, but I was honest about it, I am always honest’
In the final part of our exclusive interview, Ronny Deila reveals his pride in watching his successor continue the development culture at Celtic Park
RONNY DEILA insists he is not interested in taking any credit for Celtic’s sixth title win in a row – even though Brendan Rodgers has made only minimal adjustments to the squad since his departure, and even new signings like Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair were already on his radar.
While the Northern Irishman has been an overwhelming success since arriving at the club last summer, taking the club into the Champions League and going unbeaten domestically all season long, even he was quick to acknowledge the recruitment and development work done by his predecessor prior to his arrival. Deila told Herald Sport that he was “so glad” that it was Rodgers who took over and was delighted to see so many of the players that he worked with prospering. Even when his future with Celtic was unclear, Deila was meeting twice with Dembele’s agent and speaking to Sinclair in person.
“Look, I don’t want to take any honour for anything,” insisted Deila. “I think again this is a Scottish thing. ‘What you have done?’ I worked – together with John Collins, John Kennedy, almost everyone who is there just now, Peter [Lawwell] and all the others.
“I think they have made an unbelievably good season,” he added. “I was so happy that Brendan Rodgers was coming after me, because I knew that he is a very, very good coach and a modern coach. I think he works in a lot of the ways that I worked and he continues to work in this development culture where you have high quality in training, with a lot of preparation and planning to get all the things you want to get into it.
“He was a fantastic step for the Celtic board to take, you can see that from the results. And also he is coming from Northern Ireland, so he has that Celtic mindset. It has turned out very, very well.”
Deila’s last act for the club may have been one of his most important – reassuring Rodgers that most things were in place for him to be a success in Glasgow. “I spoke to him before he signed,” said Deila. “I had heard rumours by then that he was going to be the one who replaced me, but he spoke to me before he signed for the club. I had also met him at Liverpool when he was manager there. I came to study Liverpool for a few days and I had an interview with him in his office.
“He just wanted information about how things were and what I thought about things,” he added. “I guess I sold the club to him, but I was honest about it, I am always honest. I told him what was good about it and what he should do something about. But what he has done, together with all the staff and the players, has been tremendous – a very good season. It could be an historic one. I don’t see why not.”
How many of Celtic’s triumphant title winners will give their former manager a thought at their moment of triumph, which could well come at Tynecastle this weekend? Deila, who declined an offer from Peter Lawwell to attend the recent Old Firm match, will be too busy with his pre-season preparations for the new campaign with Valerenga to pay a visit before perhaps the autumn. But he will be following things from afar and his fingerprints are all over this team, even if it is highly questionable whether they would ever have achieved such heights of consistency had he remained in charge.
It was he who handed Kieran Tierney his debut when he had a perfectly good, established leftback there in the form of Emilio Izaguirre, took a punt on Craig Gordon and was quick to recognise the role Scott Brown could play as captain and dressing-room enforcer. It was he who saw a player of worth in Tom Rogic, when it appeared that his future may be away from the club.
The signing of central defenders Erik Sviatchenko, Jozo Simunovic and Dedryck Boyata all came about under his watch, as did that of Patrick Roberts and Stuart Armstrong, even if the latter was often deployed on the left. He made Leigh Griffiths a mainstay up front,
When I see people I have a good relationship with all of them. When I left I had a very good feeling. It was the right moment. It was good for the club, and it was good for me and for the players and everything. It has turned out very good