Ronny requires no party pieces to put bold Bhoys in right mood to celebrate
RONNY DEILA has no need to re-enact the curious brand of cheerleading favoured in Norway in order to stir Parkhead passions because he fully expects his players to produce a storming second half of the season at Celtic Park.
Celtic tamely signed off from their home Premiership schedule for the year with a drab stalemate against bottom side Ross County, leaving the champions in the unusual situation of trailing Hamilton and Dundee United in the home goals scored column at the halfway stage of the season.
Deila will seek to add to that 19-goal haul on Wednesday with the visit of Motherwell, one of three clubs to have raided points from Celtic turf thanks to a 1-1 draw back in September under Stuart McCall.
With attendances well short of capacity, there is further encouragement this season for away sides — none of which were able to score a Premiership victory there during the 2013/14 campaign.
Deila, whose pre-match party piece at Stromsgodset was often to kick the advertising boards round the stadium, said: ‘It’s not so easy to do that at Celtic Park! It’s a different environment but I don’t think we won games in Norway because of that — it was other things.
‘What you do on the pitch is the most important thing and, if you play well and have energy, then it will be tough on our opponents.
‘We are working to make our home ground a place where other teams don’t like to play. That’s what I was used to with my former club.
‘If people wanted to come and meet my team at home, it was going to be tough. I didn’t lose at home for three years in the league and I’ve only lost one in the league at Celtic Park — and that’s one too many.
‘It takes a bit of time to get that going. Teams used to attack us more but now they are sitting deeper and we have to find that key to get through. When we do that, our opponents won’t know what to do.
‘It’s about tempo and constant improvement. Hopefully we can show ourselves in a very good light on Wednesday and beat Motherwell. We will be looking to bounce back and get some revenge. We did have a draw against Ross County but it wasn’t a bad performance.
‘We all need to work together. The supporters really have to get behind the team and create the atmosphere we want. We have an exciting month ahead of us. We have taken 31 out of 36 points. If we can keep going like that, it’s going to be hard to stop us.’
The scoreless flop at home to Jim McIntyre’s side at the turn of the year was all the more baffling given Celtic had sauntered to one of their easiest wins of the season at Dingwall — 5-0 — two months earlier.
It’s back to the Highlands next Saturday for Celtic, the day after Aberdeen travel to face St Johnstone. Anthony Stokes, who scored twice in that romp, said: ‘We won comfortably the last time up at Ross County but I remember thinking that is probably the easiest we’ve ever had it up there. We normally find it a difficult place to go.
‘This is a big week for us. We need a push now. Aberdeen are top of the league but we have games in hand and need to focus on ourselves.
‘We have two more this week then we all know what is coming up after that — the Rangers game.
‘We know if we win our games in hand that we will be back top of the league. Aberdeen are obviously a rival. They are there or thereabouts. I think they are one of the strongest teams in the league, squad-wise.
‘But we can only go and try to win games. Our focus is to try to win the league as comfortably as we can. That won’t change regardless of anything.’