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Ronny Deila appointed as new Celtic manager
By: Paul Cuddihy on 06 Jun, 2014 11:04
CELTIC Football Club is delighted to announce that it has appointed Ronny Deila as the Club’s new Football Manager.
Highly-rated manager Ronny (38), joins Celtic from Strømsgodset IF in Norway, where he has led the Club to national cup glory and to the Norwegian Premier League title last season, the first time the Club had won the League Championship in 42 years. Ronny joins Celtic on a 12-month rolling contract.
New Celtic manager, Ronny Deila said: “It is a magnificent honour to be named the new Manager of Celtic, one of the world’s great football clubs and a club I have such enormous respect for. I will treasure this opportunity and will give everything I have to achieve success for Celtic and our wonderful fans.
“I know what I want for Celtic and our supporters and that is the best of everything, it is what our fans deserve. I want to deliver the best attacking, exciting and entertaining football we can play, for the players to give their best every time they take to the field of and, of course, I want my players to work with me to achieve the best results possible and bring trophies to Celtic.
“Celtic is in great shape and the Club has enjoyed real success in recent years due to the hard work of Neil and his team. I want to carry on this work and continue to bring happy times to Celtic. I can’t wait to get started on this journey.”
Celtic Chairman Ian Bankier said: “We are delighted to have secured Ronny as Celtic Manager. He is a highly-regarded individual and a man who we are confident will bring great success to Celtic.
“He is a forward-thinking coach and manager with a progressive approach. The Celtic Board will support Ronny fully and in every way and we look forward to working with him.”
Celtic Chief Executive Peter Lawwell said: “We believe Ronny will prove to be a fresh and dynamic new manager and someone who will give us a bright and energetic way forward for Celtic.
“Knowing that he was so highly-rated across Europe, Ronny was one of the first candidates we considered as manager and having discussed the opportunity with him at length, we are convinced he has the talent and the determination to deliver very positive results for the Club and our supporters.
“Ronny likes to play attacking, winning football, the Celtic way, something I know our supporters will endorse. As the new season begins, I am sure our fans will get right behind Ronny and the players once again as we aim to bring success to Celtic and continue to deliver a Club they can be proud of.”
Celtic: Ronny Deila is a good fit for the Glasgow club’s strategy
By Richard Wilson BBC Scotland
By stealth, the new Celtic manager, Ronny Deila, has found a route to prominence.
There is no sense in Norway of him having maintained a low profile while in charge of Stromsgodset, but other contenders for the Scottish champions’ managerial vacancy had carried greater renown and recognition in the UK.
Moving from Roy Keane, who has played for Manchester United and managed in the Premier League, to a 38-year-old who has never worked outside of Norway seemed a lurch. Celtic, though, assessed a number of candidates after Neil Lennon departed and there was logic to considering different managerial styles, at least in the club’s current circumstances.
A figure such as Keane, or Henrik Larsson – who also held talks with Celtic – would have brought box-office appeal at a time when an uplift in ticket sales would be welcomed. The likes of Malky Mackay, Owen Coyle and Steve Clarke were linked with the job, but none carry the status with the Celtic support or wider fascination of Larsson and Keane.
Stromsgodset head coach Ronny Deila
“Deila’s approach is to develop individual talent while fitting it into the overall framework of the team’s tactics”
Deila is a better fit as he matches the profile the club pursues in its recruitment of players. That strategy has worked effectively for Celtic, so there is reason in their consideration of a young manager who has shown the potential to develop.
“He’s the right man because he’s intelligent, modern, good track record,” said Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive, at the media conference to confirm Deila’s appointment. “He fits perfectly with where we are. We develop our own. We find uncut diamonds, put them in the Champions League. He’s ideal for that.”
Deila had a modest playing career that brought two Norway Under-21 caps. A qualified teacher, his development as a head coach has been steady and impressive. Stromsgodset are a small club even in Norwegian terms, with average gates below 6,000.
Based in Drammen, an industrial town, there was a financial crisis at the club in 2005 that required the intervention of four local businessmen. Deila joined first as a player-coach in 2006 then stepped up to the head coach’s job two years later.
His task was to replace the older players in the squad with younger ones while reducing the wage bill.
Most coaches rail against restrictions, but Deila welcomed the stringent conditions. His approach is to develop individual talent while fitting it into the overall framework of the team’s tactics. He insists that his sides play a high-tempo, industrious, attacking style, and younger players tend to be more open to the demands of an idealist.
“You have two possibilities to get knowledge into the team,” Deila said at Celtic Park on Friday. “Buy them or develop them. We need to develop players up to a European standard. I like to get players up to potential, make them world class at a huge club.
New Celtic boss Deila ‘very proud’
“It’s about winning trophies, getting into Europe, developing players and creating a culture inside the club. The culture of developing is everything. I have to think about the process and what to do on the pitch. Then results will come.
“Without development, you won’t get results. The board will see what I’m doing with the club. If I do well and make people happy, push the right buttons, we’ll get results.”
In 2009, Stromsgodset’s young and inexperienced squad were expected to be drawn into a relegation battle. At the outset of the campaign, Deila insisted that he would rather his team went down playing the kind of progressive football that he believes in than stay up playing unattractively.
Celtic fans will wince at the notion that a philosophy might trump practicalities, since the obvious parallel is Tony Mowbray’s brief and tortured spell in charge of the club. The demands of working successfully under the intense pressure and scrutiny of Glasgow can also be distorting.
Deila will have to manage a daunting transition. There is little chance of that inhibiting him. Occasionally he veers into exhibitionism, stripping so that he could throw his clothes into the crowd after guiding Stromsgodset to the title last season.
“I’m not so happy about that,” Deila said, laughing. “I hope I’m fitter now than I was then. It was a bet between fans and me. I said that, if we stay up, I would strip. Will I do it here? Maybe if we win the Champions League.”
Stefan Johansen scores for Celtic against St Mirren
Stefan Johansen (right) joined Celtic from Deila’s Stromsgodset in January 2014
Nonetheless, the behaviour could be excused since Stromsgodset had not won the title for 43 years and it was only the second in their history. There are other measures of progress, such as his decision to recast Stefan Johansen from an inconsistent winger to an impressive playmaker in central midfield.
That move led to Johansen being called up to the national team and it will resonate with Celtic, whose policy is to sign players with potential and develop them so that they can be sold at a profit. They took advantage of Deila’s work by signing Johansen in January and the club’s scouts were struck by Stromsgodset’s style of football.
Further research would have enthused Celtic, since Deila is committed to improving himself. He has observed training at the likes of Ajax, Manchester City and Liverpool, although he has been most consistently compared to Jurgen Klopp, the Borussia Dortmund head coach.
That is based on their respective teams’ shared high-intensity approach but also the industrial backgrounds of the communities that their teams share. Deila has also spent time in Dortmund watching Klopp at close quarters.
“I like Jurgen Klopp. But I’m Ronny Deila,” he said. “I like how he gets close to players, makes them feel loved. At Celtic Park, we need energy. They need to see a team who wants to attack. Be very hard to beat at home.
“I don’t think so much about it. I’m me. I hope somebody will say some day: ‘He looks like Ronny Deila’.”
Celtic can think strategically, because there is little competitive challenge in domestic terms. Deila likes to build teams that fit his template, and that might take time, but there is also the demand to be immediately effective because the club have Champions League qualifiers to negotiate. So do Stromsgodset and the two clubs could draw each other.
Supporters will also make immediate judgements. Some might have preferred an established name, but Scottish football is a restrictive environment when Celtic are trying to maximise their own potential.
“He’s the right man because he’s intelligent, modern, with a good track record,” said Lawwell. “He fits perfectly with where we are. We have a decent track record, know what we’re doing in financial and football sense. We’ll continue that.
“We are dominant in Scotland – we want to continue that and progress in the Champions League. And play attractive football. There is money available to strengthen.”
Deila fits the bill in the sense that he will work readily in a set-up that relies on shrewd scouting and sensible transfer-market policies. All the same, he is a manager who will have to adapt and grow into the job, which carries with it the risk of failing to live up to the demands of the role.
Other candidates might have been safer options, but if they were out of reach or economically unviable then there was worth in pursuing the potential of a head coach who has shown that he may have the characteristics to succeed at a higher level.
Who is Celtic manager target Ronny Deila?
Highly regarded for his attacking philosophy, Ronny Deila has transformed Stromsgodset. Picture: PA
• by STEPHEN HALLIDAY
Updated on the 05 June
2014
10:06
Published 05/06/2014 00:00
IN Norway, they call him “Super Ronny”. When news of his prime candidacy for the Celtic manager’s job reached Scotland yesterday, the initial reaction was “Ronny Who?”.
It’s fair to say that, even among the most avid students of European football, Ronny Deila is something of an unknown quantity.
Celtic, however, have certainly done their homework on the 38-year-old who has suddenly emerged as the leading contender to succeed Neil Lennon in the highest-profile job in Scottish football.
They have been aware of his burgeoning reputation as one of the brightest young coaches on the continent since they began scouting his Stromsgodset team more than a year ago.
The dossier they compiled on the side crowned Norwegian champions in 2013 led to the signing of midfielder Stefan Johansen in January this year. Now it looks as if Celtic are going to follow that up by recruiting the man who transformed the Drammen club from relegation fodder to Champions League qualifying contenders.
Deila, a qualified teacher, has worked uncomplainingly on a limited budget at Stromsgodset, recruiting shrewdly and combining young talent with a smattering of more experienced professionals. His biggest strengths are said to be his man-management skills and ability to communicate his tactical philosophy to his players.
He is committed to an attacking style of play, built around pace and sharp passing, with a favoured 4-3-3 formation. Deila has drawn comparisons in recent seasons with Jurgen Klopp, the often eccentric but highly successful Borussia Dortmund manager whose own football philosophy has earned so many admirers.
In his own quest for self improvement since becoming Stromsgodset coach six years ago, Deila has visited several European clubs, including Dortmund, to study their coaching and training methods.
“I have great respect for Klopp’s achievements at Dortmund,” said Deila in a Norwegian newspaper interview last year. “There are so many questions to ask him. I like to know more about the way they develop their players so that they are ready to star at top international level so quickly. The comparison with Klopp is a huge recognition of my work at Stromsgodset and it is nice to have it put into such a context, but I do not feel like Klopp yet. Our style of play is very similar to that of Dortmund, but we must remember that we do it at a very different level.”
Deila, who has also spent time with Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers as well as visiting Manchester City, Barcelona, Ajax and Rennes to satisfy his desire for personal and professional development, would certainly embrace Celtic’s policy of sourcing relatively unknown talent, maximising their potential and selling them on for a significant profit.
Born in the southern Norwegian town of Porsgrunn, Deila began his playing career with his local lower tier club Uraedd. He was spotted by top-flight outfit Odd Grenland and soon became a mainstay of their defence, following his first-team breakthrough in 1993.
Deila was capped nine times for the Norwegian under-17 side and then made two appearances for the under-21s in 1996, both of them on a tour of the USA, but never represented his country at senior level.
The highlight of his playing career was the Norwegian Cup Final of 2000 when he played in the Odd Grenland side which defeated Viking Stavanger 2-1 to lift a trophy which still carries as much prestige, if not more, than the league title in Norway.
After leaving Odd Grenland in 2004, he had a brief spell with Viking before joining Stromsgodset as a player in 2006. He became an assistant coach at the same time and on retiring as a player in 2008 he was appointed manager of the club.
His first two seasons in the job were a battle for survival. In the 2009 campaign, he pledged to strip off on the pitch if Stromsgodset managed to avoid relegation, claiming it would be a huge achievement given the limited resources at his disposal. When they duly stayed up on the last day of the season, Deila was as good as his word and the photographs of him down to his underpants and socks were splashed across the Norwegian media.
If that was an unusual way to raise his profile, it is results on the pitch which have enhanced Deila’s reputation ever since. As his work started to bear fruit, Stromsgodset won the Norwegian Cup in 2010 and made steady improvement in the league.
After finishing runners-up in 2012 to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Molde side, Deila’s team were crowned champions last year. It was only the second title success in Stromsgodset’s 107-year existence and the first since 1970.
The club were aware that Deila was beginning to attract attention outwith Norway and handed him a new contract, which runs until 2016, in order to head off interest from
Swedish champions Malmo who unsuccessfully attempted to poach him in January this year.
Stromsgodset are currently second in the table as they defend their domestic title, five points behind Molde after 11 games of the Norwegian campaign which runs from March to October.
Their success under Deila has been built on a remarkable home record which has seen them go 44 league games unbeaten at their Marienlyst Stadium since June 2011. They are just one short of the all-time Norwegian record set by
Rosenborg.
There is no doubt Deila will be making a huge step up if he lands the Celtic job. Stromsgodset play to average home crowds of around 6,000 and operate in a generally low-key media environment. The contrast at Celtic Park could hardly be sharper.
Deila also has limited experience of European football. He took Stromsgodset into the
Europa League twice – losing 4-1 on aggregate to Atletico Madrid in the third qualifying round in 2011 and then 5-2 on aggregate to Czech side Jablonec at the same stage two years later.
With Champions League group stage participation now the benchmark for success as a Celtic manager, Deila will be under pressure to hit the ground running in the qualifiers next month where Stromsgodset are, coincidentally, among the
potential opponents for the Scottish champions.
If he can ensure Celtic enjoy a third consecutive season among Europe’s elite clubs, then no-one will be asking “Ronny Who?”
for long.
from http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl/who-is-celtic-manager-target-ronny-deila-1-3433750
Deila is the pragmatic purist
Nick Rodger
Golf Correspondent
Sunday 17 August 2014
You are what you eat, apparently.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/deila-is-the-pragmatic-purist.25067825
Waddle up to the supermarket check-out these days and you half expect the food police to halt your advance and begin rummaging through the contents of your basket while tutting, grimacing and hissing with disgust at the collection of pies, cakes and microwaveable swill that form the bedrock of your messages.
Ronny Deila is not quite Gillian McKeith but the new Celtic manager has certainly given his players food for thought. “Things have changed here, the way we eat,” defender Mikael Lustig, said. “To be fair it was Coke and Irn-Bru for lunch for some of the lads; we’re having more food-wise now, thinking about how we can be better when we’re not playing.”
Deila has his own way of doing things. It is a particularly meticulous approach. The Norwegian has his philosophies on how the game should be played and the standards he expects from his players, both on and off the pitch, are exceedingly high. Food, fitness, you name it. Deila is a demanding manager.
“We look at the body fat,” he said, sounding like the supervisor of the Lennoxtown branch of WeightWatchers. “I want a quick team and you can’t be quick if you weigh two or three kilos too much.
“You need quick players in Europe. Look at Ronaldo and [Gareth] Bale. That’s the standard we’re talking about. You talk to me about the Champions League? OK, then we have to look like a Champions League team and we have to train like a Champions League team.
Players who don’t develop as players? I don’t give a s**t if they make mistakes, tomorrow, next weekend or the weekend after that and we lose. But if you are the same player in the autumn as you were in the spring, then you have a problem and I have a problem”
The 6-1 aggregate qualifying defeat to Legia Warsaw was certainly not part of the grand plan, of course, and Deila’s open, expansive approach and general tactical nous was severely criticised.
Celtic have a second bite at the cash-laden cherry, following the Poles’ exclusion from the competition for fielding an ineligible player, and a visit to Slovenia to face Maribor in the play-off round now beckons on Wednesday.
The promised land of the group stage is looming seductively on the horizon and in order to get there, the uncompromising Deila knows he may have to, well, compromise some of his footballing ideals and beliefs.
“I think in Europe I have to because it’s short-term and it’s about results,” said Deila, who has always preferred to take the long-term view and remains a great advocate of nurturing young talent. “If you go into the group stage then you have reached a bit of the goal.
“Then you can learn from the matches and at home you can be more offensive. Away you have to adapt more and be more careful. But these two games, of course, we have to put out the team that gives us the best opportunity of winning. It’s not about development in those games, it’s about winning and that’s how I have to go into them I’m looking forward to the day that I can say to the players ‘go and play normally’. That will be good.”
Deila added: “I’m not here for money, I’m not here for trophies. I win a trophy and then don’t look at it once afterwards, although of course it’s what I remember. It’s the small things. If I see a boy coming to the club and then he is a man leaving the club, I get goosebumps.
“I love to develop players, that what it is about for me. That’s why I say I want to go to the stadium and entertain the fans. When I take my car home from Celtic Park and I’m so proud of the performance, and everybody’s happy, then that’s the ultimate for me.
“What’s hard for me is that at big clubs, the pressure to get the result is so hard, so it’s difficult to be creative because you’re afraid of mistakes, If you make them, you lose, and then people are after you at once.
“That’s why the best-driven clubs are the small clubs, because they can make mistakes, they can lose matches, but they can develop. That’s why players come through. But when you come to a big club, everything is about winning.”
Amid the tumult of Uefa’s decision to give Legia the boot and usher Celtic back into the fray, the players are simply trying to focus on the job in hand. “It’s a strange position to be in,” Lustig admitted.
The whipping in Warsaw and the misery of Murrayfield in the second leg will be forgotten if Celtic can conjure success over the Slovenians. “We’ve been in the Champions League for two years in a row and we know how nice it is,” Lustig added. “The fans love it, the club loves it and it’s really important. It’s a lot of pressure but we’ve been through [qualifying] for the last two years and we’ve been successful.
“We need to find our game now. We need to be better in defence as that’s always been our strength during qualification. Both games against Legia we were too open. We should have played better but I can’t explain why we didn’t.”
Deila will be hoping his players answer those questions and make sure the mouthwatering fare found at Europe’s top table is on the menu for Celtic again this year.
Ronny Deila lambasts critics – and says people think Norwegians are good only at skiing
Oct 2014
Celtic manager Ronny Deila finally loses his cool ahead of Group D game in the Europa League and insists that his emphasis on diet and fitness is justified.
By Roddy Forsyth
The pent-up frustration of three months caught up in what his boss called “a s— storm” poured out of Ronny Deila ahead of tonight’s Europa League tie against Dinamo Zagreb. Irritated by those – and there are many, including some within his squad who have questioned his emphasis on diet and athleticism and endlessly varied team selections, Deila dropped his cool and polite Scandinavian manner in a scornful rebuke to his detractors.
Asked if he felt that a young Scottish coach would have been granted a softer passage, Deila said: “Yes, maybe – it’s hard to say – but if I want to get to the Champions League, you f—–g have to look at the Champions League and if you see the fitness in the Champions League it’s unbelievable – unbelievable!
“We have to look outside the country, not inside. If Van Gaal was coming in and saying all these things you would be sitting there nodding your heads – but I come from Norway and they are only good at skiing.
“I think Scottish football has gone [gestures down]. The national team in the Nineties was good. There were Scottish players playing in foreign leagues. Now it’s not the same and what you did in the Nineties is not happening now.
“If you went to Manchester City or Chelsea and saw the professionalism on display there I think you would be shocked. I really think the Scottish players are open to new
“Most of the things are not so new, they knew about them already but are we talking Scotland or are we talking Europe? To win in Scotland, we can do the same things as before but if you tell me that a player can be three or four kilos too heavy and play against Ronaldo, then good luck.
“I get irritated discussing it. You have to understand that the fitness is unbelievable out there. If you see Gareth Bale, that’s Champions League level. So are we not going to try and adapt to that?”
Deila summoned the success of a Scottish sporting icon to his cause when he added: “Do you think Andy Murray eats chips? For Andy Murray to win Wimbledon, he did something different to what he did four or five years before. He looks much sharper, much fitter, and if you ask him about that, you will get good answers.
“It’s the same for my players. They are playing for Celtic, the best club in Scotland and we are going to compete in the Champions League. You have to make sacrifices for that.
“I hope the players question things. We have arguments about a lot of things, but it’s about understanding and talking. People have choices but Celtic is going one way and that is upwards. We are going to develop.
“If you are going to be into it, you have to make changes yourself. I have to adapt, I have to be a better manager than I was in Norway. I have to learn new things, sacrifice things that I would have done in Norway. If Celtic or Scotland are not ready for that, then I will go back to Norway. It’s no problem.”
That said, Deila acknowledged the difficulty of blending change with the requirement, at a club of Celtic’s currently unchallenged status in Scotland, to post significant results. However, he was certainly not shy of setting himself targets – yesterday he declared again that the aim was to win all the Scottish honours and amass 10 points in Group D of the Europa League – but tonight is a crucial test of his credibility.
With a point in the bank from their 2-2 draw with Salzburg in Austria, three home wins would take Celtic to the likely qualifying total. For that process to begin tonight, though, Deila will have to steer his players to a third successive competitive victory for the first time this season and he is presented with yet another selection difficulty.
John Guidetti – who scored his first goal for Celtic against Hearts last week and claimed a double in the 2-1 win away to St Mirren on Saturday – is ineligible for this tournament. He could be replaced by Anthony Stokes, but that would mean taking a chance on a striker who has not scored in 19 European ties since his two goals against Rennes in the Europa League three years ago.
Stefan Scepovic has yet to display the physical presence to discomfit opponents, which leaves Wakaso Mubarak – who scored in Austria – as the man most likely to start, but with whom? Kris Commons looks likely to be fit after tearing a muscle in his buttock but has not been prominent in Deila’s European selections.
Leigh Griffiths has been an almost wholly marginal figure, yet the manager hinted that the forward might have a role to play tonight.
“He can be part of the game tomorrow. He’s in the squad, so we’ll see,” said Deila. “He’s a good football player and he scores goals, but I know he can be much sharper and stay on top of his game for 90 minutes. Once he has that then he’ll be so much better.”
As for Deila himself, he finished his candid preview on another defiantly upbeat note when he said: “I have really enjoyed the job and I am looking forward to every match.
“I am going to win things – that’s why I am here.”
Fist pumps and one-liners, Ronny Deila is winning over the doubters in his own inimitable style
Michael Grant
Chief football writer
Sunday 8 February 2015
BIT by bit, week after week, light and shade is being drawn into our understanding of Ronny Deila and this compelling stranger is becoming a more rounded and familiar character.
Watching this young Norwegian’s personality being fleshed out over the eight months since then – or, more accurately, our grasp of what he’s about being given some depth – has been fascinating. It’s too early to say if he’s going to be a good Celtic manager.
Nothing has been won yet and the attempts to reach the Champions League group stage were botched. But it’s impossible to believe that trophies aren’t on their way, and Celtic’s affection for him is growing. He was blessed with open-mindedness and acceptance from most supporters from day one and that relationship is deepening. The performance he goes through after winning every away game has often looked a bit contrived and over-the-top but it’s no longer spontaneous. It’s become an expected part of the after-show.
The Celtic fans at Dens Park waited and built up to it on Saturday and he obliged them: three fist pumps from him, three roars back from them. This is a new signature of the Deila reign. Celtic fans like the cut of his jib. One was huckled at Dens for leaping out of the stands to rush up and wrap his arms around him as everyone was walking off the pith. They lapped up the footage of Deila doing some beery dancing with what turned out to be his mum a few hours after the Old Firm game last weekend.
That was the fixture in which “he wouldn’t know what hit him”, of course. The game where he “didn’t know what he was in for”. Really? He sailed through it. He was measured and diplomatic throughout the build-up and respectful in the aftermath. Scandinavians in football can be bone dry but his media conferences have been frank and interesting from day one, which means reporters tend to appreciate and like him. Neil Lennon was a one-man newspaper-filling machine an an impossible act to follow but Deila has been good value.
He is opinionated and stands up for himself. There’s humour, too. He makes throwaway remarks about enjoying a beer and a night out. When asked about that dancing: “Yes! Do you want lessons?” When asked about a fire alarm forcing Celtic out of their Dundee hotel in the middle of the night: “I decided to call a meeting at two in the morning.”
Outside Celtic you can sense a sort of mild resentment towards Deila. This young guy has parachuted into a job most Scottish managers would kill for. The resources are there for him to scoop up the league, a double, even a treble. If he joins Jock Stein and Martin O’Neill on a pedestal as the only treble-winning Celtic managers there will be plenty who feel it landed on his lap and that his greatest gift was timing.
Not all Celtic fans are convinced, either, but charisma and a team motoring through the domestic scene have become a powerful combination. Right now, at least until Inter Milan, Deila has Celtic eating out of his hand.
Deila wants performances to draw crowds to Celtic
http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl/deila-wants-performances-to-draw-crowds-to-celtic-1-3758678
by ANDREW SMITH
Thursday 30 April 2015
AT A confirmation as he awaits confirmation. That is the potential scenario in which Ronny Deila could find himself come Saturday afternoon. Should his team prevail at home against Dundee tomorrow night, then a first Celtic title will be spiriting its way to the Norwegian in the event of Aberdeen failing to win at Tannadice the following day. By that stage of the weekend, Deila will be back in his homeland for the confirmations of his 15-year-old twin daughters Thale and Live.
“It will be a bit strange but in a good way. I’m very happy that the fixture list worked out the way it did,” Deila said. “Now I can fly home on Saturday morning to attend the big occasion. Of course, I will follow the results on the internet. It will be a very good night if we become champions but we must do our job first on Friday.
“
“You can say that Celtic should win every game, but it isn’t like that”
Ronny Deila
“I am looking forward to every game now. We have consistency in our performances, although we had a dip at Tannadice on Sunday. I gave the players two days off and they have come back and trained very well so I expect a high-energy display from them. Hopefully, the stadium will be as full as possible and there will be a great atmosphere so that it will be a memorable night.”
Memorable, high-octane occasions played out in front of heaving crowds at Celtic Park have been relatively thin on the ground in Deila’s first season. There is no question that the club’s followers have been won round both by their manager’s methods and mission to produce a team that is tigerish and takes the attack constantly to their opponents.
As well as his desire to see his team play more Champions League encounters, score more goals and win more trophies in his second season, Deila is honesty enough to admit he also wants more people to watch his team take visitors apart within their own environs.
“It’s also a goal to see the attendances grow,” he said. “I want people to come to the stadium and enjoy what they’re seeing. I want them to enjoy the team and to create the kind of atmosphere we get away from home with 10,000. If you have 60,000 like that then it’s so hard to play against. Celtic Park should be our castle — nobody should beat us at Celtic Park. We want to make Celtic Park a place they really, really hate to come to.”
All other Premiership sides really, really resent Celtic because the club’s fundamentals make them an insurmountable obstacle in any league campaign. Whenever the title is clinched by a Celtic manager, Deila understands that the perception of outsiders is this ought to bring a sense of relief rather than joy. To a person in that position, the championship is the minimum required to stay in post.
“There is a little relief in there but you also have to enjoy football and enjoy winning and I have worked really hard at that,” he said. “Ok, you can say that Celtic should win every game they play but it isn’t like that. However, if we win the rest of our games then we will have more than 90 points, which is a good performance for our first year together.
“I will be very happy with that. It’s also important to say that Aberdeen have been great this season – they have won consistently, too. We have done well and I will have a good feeling about that afterwards but when we lose any game here it’s a little like it was when Stromsgodset went out of the cup in the first or second round – it’s a disaster if you don’t win and, if you do, you’re expected to. But that’s something you have to deal with when you’re at Celtic”
Deila will deal with his first close-season break in Scotland as he did these down times during his Stromsgodset tenure – by refusing to switch off even when he is relaxing on a beach. “You always have to reflect on what you are doing and try to improve,” he said. “I’ve learned so many things and that’s why it is important to get away on vacation and think about what’s been done well and what can be done better.
“That’s when I will make the plans for next season. I will have conversations with all the players and come back with a document which makes clear what the next stage for the team is. I am thinking all the time, I’ve done that for the last seven or eight years. I have to be the leader so I will come back with a document for them all.”
In Deila’s post, that could only be termed a greenprint for success. he would surely confirm that.
Ronny No Dae That
Posted on Monday 13 October 2014
http://www.westsound.co.uk/sport/keevins/ronnie-no-dae-that/
By Hugh Keevins
Celtic should have stepped back from Ronny Deila when they knew there was television footage of him which cast the manager in an undignified light.
When the Norwegian celebrated a title win for his former employers Stromgodset by stripping down to his underpants and doing press-ups in front of his club’s fans that should’ve been the signal for Celtic’s hierarchy to avert their gaze and cast their sights elsewhere for Neil Lennon’s replacement.
Celtic’s managerial appointments walk in the footsteps of the clubs iconic figures, like Jock Stein, Billy McNeill and Martin O’Neill. Serious men for serious times.
Celtic aren’t to be criticised for their almost pathological fear of falling into the kind of debt that’s crippled other Scottish clubs while insisting that they live within their means.
But an appropriate salary, commensurate with the scale of the club involved, should have been set aside to pay for the hire of a manager with the pedigree to assume responsibility for the Celtic supporters’ high expectation levels.
The banner which was strategically positioned inside their ground and says “Celtic; A club like no other” should offer a clue as to how highly the Scottish champions value their place within the game.
More attention should have been paid to the club’s standing in that case than to entrust Celtic’s domestic and European future to a complete unknown whose exhibitionist antics caused people to snigger behind their hands before he had even arrived in Glasgow.
All of the above can be dismissed as the outdated opinion of a veteran hack if you like, but fans are staying away from Celtic Park in a way that’ll one day run the risk of the stadium’s top tier being closed for domestic matches, never mind the Europa League.
Deila’s future could therefore come down to a commercial decision having to be made if it appears that the manager is actually bad for business.
A lot of Celtic supporters assumed that Rangers exile from the top flight offered the chance for history to be made by their club winning ten league titles in a row and giving them bragging rights that might last for a lifetime.
Losing at home to Hamilton Accies on Sunday and watching Alex Neil’s side go to the top of the league table with a six point advantage over Celtic wasn’t what they had in mind.
Failure to win a league title in a championship race that doesn’t include Rangers should be grounds for automatic dismissal at Celtic Park because it is proof of the manager not having done his job properly.
And that, incidentally, goes for the Rangers manager who fails to win a league in which Celtic don’t feature as a competitor.
Any side with Celtic’s playing resources who fails to beat the Accies, regardless of how extraordinary their start to the season has been, arouses suspicion.
Scott Brown says some of his team-mates are guilty of hiding on the park.
Or is it the case certain players, like some supporters, are refusing to buy into Deila and his methods?
A dressing room not one hundred per cent convinced the man leading them is the right one for the job is an unsettled, un-productive place.
One departure from the Champions League qualifying stage is careless. Two exits in the same season is embarrassing.
And if it wasn’t for Craig Gordon’s breathtaking brilliance in goal Deila’s side would have no points from their opening games in the Europa League.
Celtic have had one flawless performance since the season started, taking six goals off a Dundee United side who’ve now gone above them in the league table. And you wouldn’t be rushing to bet on them being a certainty to beat Ross County when the Premier League returns after the break for international football.
But at least Celtic are on a scheduled break.
Rangers are demanding an apology from Livingston for a programme article at the weekend which suggested the club had gone out of business after going into liquidation and was now a new entity with no back history beyond League Two and League One title wins.
Fair enough. Stand on your dignity, but there has to be consistency.
And surely Rangers should also have more respect for their much cherished history than to ask for the cancellation of what should have been this weekend’s away game against the Championship’s bottom club, Cowdenbeath?
Ally McCoist’s side are six points off league leaders Hearts and have volunteered to run the risk of falling even further behind by the time they emerge from their self-imposed hibernation.
Why?
There must be a Rangers side strong enough to beat Cowdenbeath without using an international break as an excuse to dodge a fixture.
Why the opposite view has been taken is as big a mystery as what Rangers fans found to fight about in West Lothian on Saturday.
The team scores a beautiful goal and some of the crowd turn ugly. Go figure.
So anyway, here we have it. The managers of Celtic and Rangers under pressure from their own fans to deliver or go, and the prospect of neither club winning their respective league titles is a feasible one.
Meanwhile, Robbie Neilsen, at Hearts, and the miracle worker of the Accies are early contenders for Manager of the Year.
That’s because they have teams who are consistent, allowably aggressive and free scoring.
It would appear those are attainable qualities if you’ve got the right bloke in charge.
2014/15 KDS forum posts
From KdS
2014
It’s utter guff to suggest that there are people wanting Ronny to fail at Celtic simply in order to be proved right on the internet.
The logic is baffling.
For the record, I was quite excited at the new approach and taking a risk and all of the rest of it and remember talking to Spare Hoops about the merits over this appointment over people like Owen Coyle or Mark McGhee or any other frightening prospects that have seemed too close to reality in our recent history.
Based on what I’ve seen so far, this is a risk that hasn’t worked and will not work. I’m now of the opinion that we got a Norwegian McGhee or Coyle as the board knew it would be a hard sell for one of those guys, so they went to Norway and presented us with a visionary.
In reality, he went for the assistant manager’s job and got the manager’s job – a reckless gamble of the part of our ‘custodians’, which has cost us the thick end of £20Million quid, so far.
I’ve seen nothing to suggest this is a team built with steel and resilience and they way the players hid at 0-0 the other night made me seriously concerned about what would happen if we lost a goal. I’m no tactician, but what I’ve seen is that we’ve done well against two teams who have collapsed (Dundee Utd and Ross County) and managed to use the space well when Kilmarnock went down to 10 men, in what had previously been an even encounter. I’m being generous there, because even Celtic TV, which is hardly renowned for it’s impartiality, said that Killie had edged it in terms of chances created.
In all other games I’ve seen a startling lack of cohesion. The defence is back to the bad old days of the sieve. Any team could score against us and the goalie (I appreciate this is what he’s paid for) has bailed out his badly functioning colleagues on a number of occasions, when previous Celtic goalies in our recent history largley had to battle to maintain their concentration. It’s all very well saying we’re going to play an attacking style of football, but if it’s not built on solid foundations, it’s pointless. We will get gubbed at some point – as we have seen a number of times this season.
The midfield is a puzzle as it neither seems to create a lot of chance, nor protect the defence properly. Going forward, we are better when Guidetti plays and offers some movement, and now it seems we have someone to get on the end of headers too. So there might be a chance of a decent partnership developing which should make it easier for a midfield that struggle with a lack of movement in front of them. That’s the only positive so far – and it’s mitigated by the knowledge that Guidetti isn’t our player yet and may well sign for someone else in January.
I liked some of what Ronny said and have no problems with a general aim of getting players fitter. That said, we should still already be fitter than every other team in the country, over the piece, given that we can buy better athletes as well as better footballers – not to mention that, as far as I’m aware, the overall diet at the club is not any worse than that at other clubs. I’d wager that it’s better. However, when the manager dreams of not only beating Barcelona but dominating possession, given our relative resources, I’d question how grounded he is in reality.
Any number of poor Celtic managers managed to pull some cracking results out of the bag, and some sparkling performances into the bargain. They didn’t mark turning points or make them better managers. They were blips. As it stands, Ronny’s ‘credit’ column is looking pretty sparse.
It stands to reason, that if he can turn us around and get his team playing the kind of football that he dreams about, then the fans, being a fickle bunch, will grow to love him. All will be forgotten and we’ll savour a new hero. That’s what football fans are like. They’ll hold their hands up and say, ‘I wanted him gone and look at us now,’ just as Man Utd fans did with Ferguson.
The difference is we don’t have a Ferguson here. It’s not much of a risk, but I’m willing to stick my neck on the line and say that. If I’m proved wrong, hallelujah, I’ll be delighted. It won’t have been the first time I’ve been wrong about something to do with the football. I’d wager that goes for just about anyone who’s been watching the grim viewing this season and who thinks the current management team just don’t have it.
To suggest everyone would rather go through a hellish season and more managerial upheaval (knowing full well that the board’s strategy means, most likely, another shot in the dark and the risk that entails) in order to be ‘proved right’ on the internet is quite simply nonsense.
Belgrano
20 Mar 2015, 04:28 PM
While I don’t intend to derail the Deila bus, it is kinda funny seeing the way people analyse and over-analyse a manager’s methods and style – while largely overlooking the most basic component that the best picked players, in the best side, tend to win games
If you want to be really harsh, you could say that Deila’s report card this season reads – knocked out of the Champions League qualifiers, and top of a league by 3 points that we should be winning at a canter. And while domestic cup progress is always a nice bonus, it doesn’t compare in the slightest to Last 16 Champions League progress, or nights like beating Barcelona.
Of course, although accurate, that wouldn’t quite paint a fair picture of the season so far. Yes, we were awful at the start of the season. And Deila has to take his fair share of the blame for that. His intransigence in how he laid out his teams, and trying to shoehorn certain players into his system – who clearly couldn’t play his system – was frustrating, and there was an inevitability when it all went to *****. Of course, he wasn’t helped by a lack of financial backing by the board (Scepovic was the only player he was allowed to spend a fee on – and it’s probably clear that he wasn’t even a Deila signing) and injuries to key players (such as Brown) really didn’t help his cause either, at the start of the season. But, as sometimes happens in football, a bit of bad luck ultimately turned into good luck of him, when he found some of the players he was insisting on playing (despite it being clear they weren’t suited to their designated roles) got injured. So, for example, Callum McGregor – despite contributing a few important goals early in the season – drops out of the side. Mulgrew – who likewise is never a central midfielder – sees himself out, and Biton finally gets a run in the side. The return of the Brown, and the introduction of Biton, also means Johansen – a player who struggled big time at the start of the season – is also allowed to play in the more forward position that he’s much, much more effective in and allows the team to play. Griffiths growing more and more into the forward role, and Commons adapting to playing whatever role he’s selected in the side also helped. And, before you knew it, a bit of a run, some confidence, and consistency results in the current side we see now.
Add to that, the board finally got the wake up call they needed that sometimes proven talent in the domestic game is a safer investment in the transfer market that cheap, hopefully foreign punts. The arrival of GMS and Armstrong seemed to have given the rest of the team a lift, at just the right time. And there’s a real feel of a momentum developing, and something happening at Celtic right now. Deila finally seems confident and comfortable in the role (there were times at the start of the season when he looked like a rabbit in headlights standing in that dugout). Players who would previously have run to the press, or would have been difficult with Deila, now seem onboard with what he’s doing. The team definitely looks fitter. I still don’t see this ‘amazing’ football we’re playing, but it’s true we’ve had some great individual performances since the turn of the year (to be fair, we had some great – easily forgotten or overlooked now – performances under Lennon last season too).
Things are looking good, and long may it continue. And you can never underestimate the feel-good factor, or the possibility for a real momentum to develop under a side that’s just won the treble. So that really is something worth getting excited about this year. Then, looking forward to next season, there’s a hope the board back him this summer; maybe limit how many of his side they try and sell off; and build on the European experience the team now has, from their experiences in the Europa League this year.
Gonga of KDS
http://www.thecelticwiki.com/deila%2c-ronny+-+Misc+Articles+%281%29
I think the Celtic job is one that Lenny will look back at and possibly wish that it had come later in his career,
although it will beg the interesting question, will his managerial career only have really gotten off the ground
because he was able to start at Celtic.
Its unlikely he was going to get any halfway decent managerial offers before Celtic offered him the chance, and
although I was against his appointment at the time as I thought he lacked experience, he did very well and
in hindsight he was the perfect man at the perfect time, his very existence seemed to be part of a chain of
events that led to the huns completely shaming themselves before dying altogether. It was grand to have Lenny
at the helm while this all happened, it must have been a glorious hell for the huns.
After Lenny’s first year or two in charge it was begininning to make a great deal of sense why he got the job,
and it wasn’t all to do with events on the pitch.That he didn’t win the league in the first few months after Mowbray
was sacked is no real blemish over what he did eventually do. That said, in his first full season he was given a big cash injection and was able to bring in several new players.
When Lenny started he was chasing guys Sol Campbell and Jimmy Bullard which was a bit of a concern as even at the time.
These guys were finished and so I did question just how far ranging is Lenny’s knowledge of players and potential signings.
He got the club, he was already pretty much a club legend in his own right, and he had the personality to get players to
play for him, but as a manager, this was his first job, and so there wasn’t a great deal you could really expect, it was all
a bit of a step in to the unknown.
In two summer months of his full debut season he was able to bring in 11 new players, with several internationals among them.
He had already turned around or form on the pitch having been given a couple of months at the end of the season to snap the
side out of the Mowbray malaise, because thats really what it was.
Mowbray had us in a malaise, we had some good players, but there was something missing and I think it was as simple as
our team just not feeling any urgency to play for Mowbray whose general demeanour, even on his better days is that of a dead man walking.
Without being harsh, the big turnaround by Lenny after that 4-0 drubbing at St Mirren could have been achieved by many a new manager.
It happens all the time in football, a good team under performs because something within the squad is dysfunctional (in our case it was Mowbray) and a new guy comes in and gets the spirits back up and performances improve.
We did screw up against Ross County in the SC but it was Lenny’s first job as manager so we had to accept that there would be teething
problems.
5 months later, with 11 new players, several league wins, a massive change in the outlook within the club and we still got pumped in the CL qualifiers.
The reaction to that was nowhere near what it was like for Ronny who is still to this day heavily scrutinised for that CL qualification campaign.
Ronny by comparison, was in the job for a few weeks, he had a far weaker squad overall, he was missing several of our best players through injury, including our captain, and we were off the back of a season where we seemingly had 1 main tactic – give it to Commons.
That tells me we actually had a lot of work to do, and I don’t believe that saying “oh but we were a Championship winning team” means very much at all when the dynamics of a football club are reliant on multiple factors.. its not just one guy pushing buttons.
Sometimes all you need to do is remove one piece and the whole thing collapses, although it still doesn’t mean that it was on sturdy ground to begin with.
Lenny’s time being Celtic manager was eventually about a lot more than just football. It felt like there was a battle going on between good and evil and that Lenny was in charge to see the huns fade and die was entirely worth it. However, once that story was settled, even when we were winning I was always left wandering, just what is it he has planned for the club..
Spiers on Sport: A painful night of inadequacy from Celtic throws up fresh doubts about coach Deila
Spiers on Sport, Graham Spiers / Tuesday 25 August 2015 / Sport
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/13625728.Spiers_on_Sport__A_painful_night_of_inadequacy_from_Celtic_throws_up_fresh_doubts_about_coach_Deila/>
Ronny Deila has received many plaudits for his stewardship of Celtic, but failure against Malmo over 180 minutes in the Champions League play-off is a distinct blot on the Norwegian coach’s reputation.
For a second year in succession Deila has failed to guide Celtic into the Champions League group stage. And, as with the Maribor farce of last season, Celtic have fallen to a club over whom they should – and do – have many advantages.
Celtic have better players and a bigger squad than Malmo – which is not to disparage the gritty Swedish champions. So what does it say about Deila and his game-plan over these two matches?
A manager carries the can – rightly – even though it is the players on the field who execute the failure. In Nir Bitton, Virgil van Dijk and Stefan Johansen, Celtic had at least three players whose minds seemed to be elsewhere on Tuesday night.
It was shocking to witness how woeful Celtic were in Sweden. The question has to be asked: how can a team of such players bond together as wretchedly as this on the pitch?
Deila cannot wave a magic wand and eradicate every foible of human error on the field – of course he can’t. But a manager can or should ensure that his team is primed, ready, motivated, and up for the challenge on an evening of such importance.
Celtic appeared to be none of these things. In which case, the coach, just like the players, has to assess his own shortcomings.
It is to be hoped that any unwarranted whining does not form a part of Celtic’s explanations. The goal Celtic had chalked off just before half-time – probably wrongly – cannot be allowed to linger and form resentment. Across the 90 minutes in Sweden Celtic had nothing like the panache or aggressive tempo which their opponents brought to their game.
The Scottish champions looked frighteningly vulnerable to a high ball in Malmo, despite a distinct height advantage across their team. It contributed to an inauspicious night for Celtic, a costly one to the club’s coffers, and an occasion once again when Deila’s planning and preparation came up short.
Come May 2016, if Deila and Celtic have a treble nestling in their lap, this abysmal Champions League failure will be long forgotten. But none of that conjecture can take away from a night of gross inadequacy by Celtic’s players and management team.
Virgil van Dijk remains quite a mystery as a lauded centre-half. Sometimes the price for him is hiked up and up – £10m then £12m then £15m – but there are games in which this young Dutchman looks nothing like such a talent.
Can Van Dijk actually attack the incoming high ball as an aggressive centre-back? Malmo, both in Glasgow and at home, have cast some doubt on this.
Van Dijk also has that curse of many a rated central defender – his complacency sometimes knows no bounds.
As for Dedryck Boyata, well, the most diplomatic way of putting it is that long-suffering Celtic fans are “prepared to give him time”.
The historic context of this Celtic failure will only add to the club’s discomfort.
Last season’s Champions League qualifying flop weighed heavily on Deila and Celtic, but the truth is, an opening Deila season in the Europa League was a perfect fit for Celtic.
The Norwegian coach was new to his team. He was still finding his feet and knitting his team together. There were gremlins galore, and the chances are, Deila and Celtic were not fit for purpose in the 2014-15 Champions League.
But things had looked different this time round. Deila had seemed to grow in stature, and has a reasonably settled team. This, surely, was the moment for Deila to take Celtic up a level, to compete against the best in Europe.
It is a failure that looks embarrassing for Deila, and will cause some to think again about the merits of the Celtic head coach.
Deila’s record in European games with Celtic now reads: Played 20, Won 8, Drawn 5, Lost 7. These stats include games against such cannon-fodder as Reykavik and Stjarnan.
It seems to cast doubts about Deila’s readiness for the top European arena as a coach. He has now come up short quite a number of times in Glasgow.
Deila, in fact, will have to stand tall and play hard to recover from this setback.
Deila’s standing among Celtic support is plummeting
http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/latest/deila-s-standing-among-celtic-support-is-plummeting-1-3927095
by Andrew Smith
updated 00:13 Sunday 25 October 2015
IT WOULD have once all seemed so alluring to Ronny Deila. A European away game with his team boasting 64 per cent possession and camped in their opponents’ half. Play being criss-crossed from side-to-side as the full-backs bombed on and the defence kept a high line. What’s not to like? Well, judging by the debacle in losing 3-1 against a capable counter-attacking Molde the other night, everything.
Celtic are now without a win in their past eight Europa League encounters. The have only one victory in their past six European outings in all competitions. Singular failures are being seized upon for a slump that is shrinking their stature. This is serving to disguise the fact that the shortcomings are systemic.
Deila talked the other day about striking the right balance between attack and defence. He has had 20 continental encounters to figure that out. He talked about the need to reconfigure his backline constantly after the loss of central paring Virgil van Dijk and Jason Denayer and injury problems.
Yet with that departed pair Celtic were just as leaky in heading towards the 35 total for goals conceded in Europe under the current manager. The major difference between last season’s Europa League campaign and this one is that Craig Gordon has not been able to produce the saves to spare his team.
Deila talked about a pattern to the mistakes. Yes, and that does not begin and end with Efe Ambrose, Emilio Izaguirre, Dedryck Boyata et al. It is a curious twist that Celtic with the ball are now more vulnerable to losing goals than they were without it during the best of the Neil Lennon and Gordon Strachan eras. Famously, in the nicked win over Barcelona in 2012, their Catalan opponents had close on 75 per cent possession. You won’t win very many games when opponents boast stats like that but that night defensive discipline provided the cornerstone for the improbable. And who were two members of a faultless back four? The supposedly inveterate error-committers Ambrose and Izaguirre.
Deila, a thoroughly decent man, looked more than a little wounded when it was put to him on Friday that his standing among the Celtic support appeared in danger of plummeting to the base level of the shambolic Champions League qualifiers against Legia Warsaw 16 months ago. Like his team on finding themselves two goals down early on in Norway on Thursday, his response was limp.
“To get into the Champions League and play in Europe is something everybody wants and that is what we are working to achieve,” he said. “We are now in the Europa League and we will do everything we can to qualify. But I understand there are high expectations and people are disappointed at the result because the performance was not good enough.
“I think also we had two good performances against Ajax and Fenerbahce [in the opening drawn Group A games]. It is very hard in Europe and you have to acknowledge your mistakes. We have to keep on working because the goal is to get through and to qualify for the Champions League next time.”
The more immediate goals are ensuring that Molde monstering and the sideshow provided by Kris Commons’ public petulance on being substituted are not given mileage by domestic duties. Suddenly, the visit of Dundee United in the Premiership today, the midweek League Cup quarter-final away to Hearts and the hosting of Aberdeen next Saturday looks like a testing triple-header before Molde come to Glasgow.
Commons’ lights, camera, action insubordination, for which he has apologised was, Deila maintained, no sign of a general disquiet in the dressing room with the methods of the Norwegian and assistants John Collins and John Kennedy.
“A country without conflicts or confrontation is a dead environment. It’s like they don’t care, and that’s the worst thing,” he said. “People have opinions and people want to get better but the most important thing is they show them in a good way, that they mean well to each other. We want to add something to the group to make us better, not to hurt someone. I’m not afraid of conflicts or confrontations but we have to do it in the right places.”
Celtic could yet salvage qualification from a group they are propping up with two points – the same mark as Ajax, two behind Fenerbahce and five behind Molde. To finish in the top two would probably require them to beat the Norwegians and Frank de Boer’s side in their forthcoming home games and take a point from their final-game trip to Turkey. But Celtic have never taken seven points from a possible nine in the group stages of a European group.
Deila should have an opportunity to find the elusive European formula in next year’s Champions League qualifiers – whatever the noises off at present. The problem is that there is no progress being made towards returning the club to the land of milk and honey. The serious dough paid for Croatian centre-back Jozo Simunovic may help, assuming the 21-year-old £4.5 million capture delivers on his promise when fit. A couple of other signings might also have a positive influence by then, though Deila has profoundly struggled to recruit such personnel.
In recent days there has been much wistfulness from the Celtic faithful about how life was under Lennon in continental assignments. As much as damning Deila, that could also offer him some encouragement. Lennon did not fall short in back-to-back Champions League qualifying campaigns – no Celtic manager but the Norwegian has – but that was probably only because he only had access to the Europa League qualifiers in his second summer.
Lennon’s team flunked a tie with Sion but were given passage to the group stages as a consequence of the Swiss side playing ineligible players. In a Europa League section of comparable difficulty to the one in which they are currently toiling, they claimed only one win from their six games. Inside a year, they had progressed to the last 16 of the Champions League.
History has an infinitesimal chance of repeating itself but Celtic supporters aren’t asking Deila to upset such unenviable odds. They are simply asking him to make good on the advantages stacked in his favour and demonstrate discipline and drive against opponents with a fraction of Celtic’s resources. Like Molde. Like Malmo. Like Maribor. Too often with his team in Europe, it seem to be a case of Deila M for murderous outcomes.
Ronny to leave Celtic at end of the season
By: Newsroom Staff on 20 Apr, 2016 10:35
CELTIC Football Club today announced that Celtic Manager Ronny Deila has decided to leave the Club at the end of the season. Ronny has already led Celtic to a League and Cup double last season and is currently aiming to deliver Celtic’s fifth consecutive Premiership title.
Ronny Deila said: “It is vital that the Club comes first and instead of me being the focus, hopefully now the team and the Club can be the focus as we enter this final important period of the season.
“It was an absolute privilege to be named manager of Celtic, such a wonderful football club, and I have enjoyed my time here immensely. I will never forget the welcome I received almost two years ago at Celtic Park from so many fans. When I joined Celtic I knew I was coming to one of the world’s great football clubs.
“There have been some great times and I am delighted that we have brought some trophies to the Club.
“I was delighted in my first year to bring our fans a League and Cup double and enjoy some European nights at Celtic Park, and I am pleased this season to be well in contention to win another Premiership title.
“There have been some disappointments and times when we have not achieved what we had hoped for and I’m realistic and honest enough to admit that, but I know that the players, myself and my backroom team have always given everything we had to bring success to our supporters.
“I would like to thank everyone who has supported me so well at the Club. The fans have been magnificent during the past two years. Our fans are the heartbeat of the Club, they have always given myself and the team such amazing support and always created such a great atmosphere. We have always given our best for them and I will always be a Celtic supporter too.
“I also want to thank Dermot Desmond, Ian Bankier, Peter Lawwell, the players and my staff. They have given me everything.
“My total focus now is on retaining our Premiership title and making it five-in-a-row for our great club and proving that we are the best in the country. Myself and the players will be giving everything we can to achieve this and I know that starting on Sunday we must all unite and drive the Club on and really go for what we all want as Celtic supporters – to be Scottish Champions once again.”
Celtic Chairman Ian Bankier said: “I would like to thank Ronny for his contribution to the Club and, on behalf of the Celtic Board, give him our best wishes for the future in everything he does.
“Ronny is a fine man with strong values of honesty and integrity. He has had some success, which we have enjoyed, and I know all our fans will back Ronny and the players as he looks to bring us more success in the shape of a second League title.
“We are all Celtic supporters and we all know that there can be disappointments in football, but I know Ronny is a man who has given his very best to the job and someone who will always care passionately about the Club.
“The Club, as always, will give Ronny our full support until the end of the season. We will then make a decision regarding our next manager with the objective of remaining Scotland’s pre-eminent Club. I thank Ronny and once again wish him well for the future.”
Celtic Chief Executive Peter Lawwell said: “Ronny has given everything to Celtic during the past two years and we thank him for his contribution to the Club. He is a man of real humility, someone of tremendous character, and I personally wish him nothing but success for the future.
“In the immediate future that means the Scottish Premiership title. Ronny has won it already once before and I know everyone at the Club and our supporters will be right behind him and the team as he aims to do it again and make it five-in-a-row for Celtic.
“This is what we all must do now as supporters and together focus fully on achieving another title victory. If we achieve this we will aim to build again next season and make it many more.
“I would like to take this chance to thank our fans for all they have given the Club this year. Celtic has been the dominant Club in Scotland for many years and I can assure our supporters we will do everything we can to ensure that Celtic continues to be the biggest and best in Scottish football and meets every challenge which lies ahead.”
Ronny Deila: My decision to leave was taken over time
http://www.celticfc.net/news/10371
By: Martin Dalziel on 21 Apr, 2016 14:47
A FAILURE to see his hopes and plans come to fruition this year has been the catalyst for Ronny Deila’s decision to leave Celtic.
The results and performances of his side in the past six months have left the Norwegian disappointed and convinced that his departure is the only way to bring the Bhoys forward.
Speaking at Lennoxtown today, the Celtic manager said: “First of all it has been a tough week and there has been a lot of thinking.
“It didn’t start this week. I’ve been thinking about it for little while because I have felt the team hasn’t got the results they should have and, maybe the most important, the performance that I wanted or the improvement.
“When I started and came into this job I talked about improving the team and playing attractive football and in the last six months we haven’t had the improvement that we need.
“When you don’t get improvement, and it’s one of my biggest values, it kills me inside. I lose energy over that and that’s why you’re a manager, because you want to improve individually and the team.
“To see the performance now I don’t think there has been a lot of improvement and that’s one of the reasons. Also, when you don’t get improvements, then the outside pressure grows as well.
“I have no problem dealing with that and there have been a lot of difficult questions but that’s not the problem. The problem is if you don’t get improvements and the things you said you wanted when you came in the door, then it’s a thing you have to deal with.
“One of the reasons we haven’t had that improvement is because of all the pressure and speculation around me all the time.
“Before these last five games I think it’s best for the club and for me that new energy comes into the club after the season. Now we can really focus on winning the five games and getting five in a row.
“That’s going to be a huge thing for me and also for the players and the whole club. This is why the decision has been made.”
Celtic have major rebuilding to be done after Ronny Deila’s departure
Ewan Murray
Wednesday 20 April 2016 15.52 BST Last modified on Wednesday 20 April 2016 22.00 BST
Although defeat by Rangers may have fast-tracked Celtic’s statement regarding the departure of Ronny Deila, nobody should be fooled that Sunday’s result precipitated his exit. Celtic’s board – a suddenly much-maligned Celtic board – is due credit for persisting with a project which was clearly destined for failure but it knew some time ago that change in the summer of 2016 would have to come. Even Deila could be trusted with retaining the title in Scotland’s top flight – hence no necessity for earlier action.
This was hardly an expensive experiment – absence of considerable European revenue notwithstanding – but one which sadly highlighted Celtic’s gradual regression from the wonderful high point of qualification for the last 16 of the Champions League in 2012-13. Deila would never have been seriously contemplated as a Celtic managerial appointment before that and every element of evidence quickly highlighted that it was a mistake to turn to him a little over a year later.
Deila’s shortcomings are well-versed. Damningly for the Norwegian, the vast majority of them were clear – and not improved upon – within weeks of him taking office in the summer of 2014. He was tactically inflexible. Defensive woes, not remotely befitting a team even close to the level Celtic aspire to, were recurring.
The promise of exciting, expansive, high-tempo football – don’t all managers preach that? – was never delivered upon. Even Celtic’s season-ticket holders voted with their feet, collectively uninspired by a coach who forever looked out of his depth. His claim to fame and supposed endorsement of ability came in defeat, by Internazionale in last season’s Europa League.
Deila cannot say he wasn’t backed by a board which sanctioned 23 new arrivals – loan and permanent – and the appearance of a medical team from his homeland. The squad he will leave behind is bloated and lopsided. It contains players who have regressed to the point of staleness. Leigh Griffiths unquestionably improved and Kieran Tierney has brilliantly emerged from the youth set-up; the former offset by the general standard of Scottish football, the latter by the fact he would surely have done so anyway.
Deila had immediately preached about fitness and diet to a group of players who had hitherto been relatively successful. Sun beds were even encouraged as a source of vitamin D. High-fat diets were promoted. By the start of this campaign, it was those squad members who bemoaned the suitability of their pre-season buildup. There had been unease, too, at continual pressing drills upon pressing drills in training.
On Sunday the house came crashing down, just as it had threatened to domestically for so long; Celtic didn’t look nearly as sharp as their lower-tier opponents. Earlier, in Europe, Deila’s team were embarrassing in a direct contradiction to any insistence of improvement.
The recurring tributes to Deila on Wednesday revolve around what a nice bloke he is. That isn’t a unanimous point of view, incidentally, but even if it were, it stands for little. Plenty of decent guys have been incapable of operating successfully in the unique environment of the Old Firm. This is high-profile football, not a weekly and paid popularity contest.
Ronny Deila
Celticfc April 2016
Q: Now that the announcement has been made, how do you feel?
RD: “It has been a tough six months. You have asked me many times about improvements and I haven’t answered those questions really well over the last month.
“That’s why, in the end, it kills me that I don’t think the team has improved in the last six months.
“That’s my responsibility. One of the reasons we haven’t improved so much is that we have lost important games and the pressure on me has been more and more. That also affects the players and the whole surroundings.
“That’s why I was thinking this is the best thing for me and the club, to come out now and give everyone an answer.
“I feel I haven’t got the results and improvement I wanted.
“Now we can focus on the last five games. That’s the most important thing for the club and for me, to get the results and win the league.”
Q: Would your decision have been different if you’d beaten Rangers?
RD: “No, I don’t think so. Because even if we had beaten Rangers, I wasn’t happy with the performance.
“It wasn’t only that performance. It has been overall for a while now. There hasn’t been that energy I need from my teams. So that has nothing to do with the Rangers game.
“Of course, it was a hard blow but it was not the final thing.
“It is about development. That is one of my biggest things. I don’t do things to win. Of course, I want to win – but I have to win while seeing things are progressing and by playing attractive football.
“Those two things haven’t been as I wanted and that’s why I have come to this decision, because it kills my energy.”
Q: But you always said you wouldn’t quit. What changed and why now?
RD: “It is specifically because we haven’t had improvement. When the team is not taking steps, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and ask ‘What is happening here?’
“I have tried for a long time but you can’t keep on going. You have to think about the club as well.
“I have tried for some months now. Hopefully the club will be going into a Champions League qualifying campaign again this summer and with the two defeats in the two previous years, there would be even more pressure on me and everyone else.
“It is good for the club now to get new energy in for the start of next season. Because I really care for the club, I’m very fond of it and I will always be a supporter.
“But I just haven’t got that improvement that I wanted.
Q: So, why the development you were looking for stall?
RD: “That’s hard to say. It’s something I have to reflect on after the season. Of course, there are things I could do better and things I have done very well. It’s not black and white. But in the end, the total results haven’t been good enough.”
Q: Did everyone in the dressing room buy into your philosophy and your ideas?
RD: “I can’t say anything about their attitude. It is very easy for a coach to sit here and say: ‘Ah, the players haven’t done what I asked and haven’t performed as I wanted’. “But there is a reason why they haven’t done that and the coach is an unbelievably important factor in that.
“I know I’m a great coach and I know I’m going to be a great coach in the future – I don’t blame my players. I haven’t made some of them as good as they can be. Some of them have been very good, but, overall, there hasn’t been the thing that we need in Celtic.”
Q: Did you lose you the dressing room? Can you say you had the full support of all the players?
RD: “The squad has been a little bit too big in the last months, That has had an effect because it’s not easy to keep all of them happy.
“But I think they respect me for my honesty and how I want to have things. I know how I want to have things but it is hard to keep motivation up sometimes when you have too many players.
“The players will fight for me throughout the season and I don’t have any big problems with them. It’s not like I feel there are big conflicts with anybody.
“But it has been difficult to handle because of the amount of players.”
Q: Is that your mistake then? You seemed to sign so many midfield players?
RD: “We have done positive things but we have also done things that are not so good. That is something I can look back and say, yes.”
Q: Did you sign the players? All you hear is that the manager doesn’t sign the players at this club.
RD: “That’s not true. I sign the players. I have the final decision. It has been like that all the time.”
Q: So that’s not a problem for a future manager?
RD: “No. In my time there has been no problem.”
Q: When you told the players your decision, were you emotional?
RD: “Not unbelievably emotional. I don’t know how they assessed it. It’s something I thought through very clearly. I think the players took that in a good way.”
Q: If there was one thing you could have done differently what would it be?
RD: “I don’t think it’s the time to reflect right now. I want to continue the season and it’s tough right now to say ‘this is a big mistake I did’. I will have that defined when I am finished here.”
Q: Did you have issues with Kris Commons?
RD: “No. It’s nothing to do with any discussion…this comes every time we get a bad result. Every time we have a good result you never hear anything.
“Kris is a good player, we have a lot of good players here. I have no issues with Kris at all, I’ve given him many, many chances, he’s played a lot of games under me, he’s had good performances and okay performances and I try to put the best team as possible together.
“In the future everybody gets a new chance now after this season with a new manager coming in. Kris has been in my squad every time he’s been available. There is absolutely no problem with Kris.”
Q: There has been criticism of team fitness. How do you respond?
RD: “I saw different people get cramp. There are things we have to look at of course but for me it’s a psychological thing as well, because when there is so much going around the players it drains you of energy and then you don’t get out your best physical ability.
“This is also one of the reasons for doing this now, get it done, get it out, and then focus on football and keep going. When you get drained you don’t look as sharp as you can be.”
Q: When you arrived at the club, you said fitness had to improve. Did it?
RD: “I think a lot of the players have improved physically. Kieran Tierney couldn’t play 45 minutes without getting cramp when he started in the first team, now he’s played 120 minutes against Rangers and been fantastic. Callum McGregor too. You have different people and players inside the squad.
“Tom Rogic didn’t play when I was first here, he was always injured, so he is also better. I can tell you a lot of players who are better physically. I don’t think players like Scott Brown and Charlie are less good physically than they were before. It is nothing about that.
“We have trained more, we have put on more running and things also over the last eight months. We have done adjustments as well to look at these things. So I think it’s an issue that does not have one solution, it is very individual. These guys that I talk about are 100 percent in every training session.”
Q: You talk about pressure but you never looked like it affected you when you spoke to the press?
RD: “I had no problem handling questions about my situation. The pressure comes when you don’t get results.
“I know if my team got results, it would turn it around and there would be good headlines again.
“But I haven’t seen improvement in the team over the last six months. We should have kept momentum, kept going, but that hasn’t happened and it’s my responsibility.
“I feel pressure all the time but from inside myself. I’m a winner, I hate losing. I hate when I don’t get things as I want. I want to see small improvements all the time.
“I tried, did everything I could and I have learned a lot. But in the end, there is so much fuss and noise around it, that it is affecting the whole club.”
Q: Weren’t you tempted to stay and try to get it right it right?
RD: “Yeah but I think it has come so far now that I have to put the club in front of myself. I have to put my hands up and say I’ve done everything I can.
“I’ve had my chances but I haven’t got the results and performances I wanted.”
Q: Are the expectations on the Celtic manager too high? You could leave here having won the title two years running?
RD: “The future will answer that. It is tough for me to say that.
“I have been here for two years, I have gone into it knowing the expectation of the club and it is always tough to take over when the club has won a lot and been successful.
“But, at the same time, you also have good material to work with to get you trophies.
“If a manager comes into the same surroundings and goes into the Champions League and wins the treble then fantastic. I think that’s possible.”
Q: Is it unfair to say the job was too big for you?
RD: “Again, it is not black and white. You can say I haven’t made a mess of it but I think I could’ve done a better job as well.
“I have to look myself in the mirror and say: ‘Okay, this and this was good, but . . . .’ It is small details in football. My stats are not that bad. When you win 65 per cent of your games it is quite okay.
“I don’t think I will ever have that at another club in my life – unless I take over at Barcelona and do fantastic! But the important games we have lost.
“In two semi finals we had red cards. Then a penalty shoot-out against Rangers. Maribor in Europe was close – we hit the bar, they score. Those are small things.
“I don’t blame anybody. At the same time I know I’ve done a lot of good things for the club and for a lot of players and staff. It’s important for me to get out from this and from the club, so we can focus on the last five games.”
Q: If you hadn’t decided to go, do you believe the club would have given you another season?
RD: “That’s hard to say. There would have been a hard evaluation about everything, about how to do things to improve the team. The Board would have had to make a decision.
“But it has been my call. Of course, I talk all the time with Peter (Lawwell) and I have really appreciated that when things have gone well or badly, the communication has been good.
“Our understanding and respect for each other has been very good.”
Q: Some people think you should go right now. Was that a consideration?
RD: “No, I did not consider that. If the club wanted to do that, they would have looked at it.
“I don’t think it is good to change everything around when there are five games to go. We have had a lot of good results and we haven’t lost a lot of games.
“We have five games now and we can be champions of Scotland.”
Q: If you had beaten Malmo to get into the Champions League could that have changed the whole mood of the season?
RD: “Yes. I think so. Small details can change things. But, again, it’s a lot of ifs.”
Q: How hard will it be for Celtic to get through the Champions League qualifiers if they win the title?
RD: “It’s very tough. But it is possible. Why should Malmo be there and not us? We should and could have beaten Malmo. We were better than them in a lot of the time that we played them.
“It is small details and you have to have a little bit of luck. It’s a cup. But also, you start and are straight into the season. Celtic should be in Europe, that’s for sure.
“It is small details between being in the Champions League and being in the Europa League. But the Europa League is quite a high level as well.”
Q: If David Moyes or anyone else phones you would you tell him to take it?
RD: “Of course, it is a fantastic job, I would do it 100 times again if I got the opportunity.
“I would never, ever regret it. It has been unbelievable. It’s a privilege to be the Celtic manager and I’ve done everything I can to make it right.”
Q: So, it’s still a job someone should grasp?
RD: “Of course. I know for a fact that when I wanted the job I was not alone.
“So again, it is a very attractive job and I can understand that because this is a special club.”
Q: What feedback have you experienced from fans since your decision was made public?
RD: “I haven’t been so close to the fans now, I’ve had a lot of other things to do so I haven’t seen so much. Some people will be a little bit sad, some will be very happy, that’s how it is in football clubs.
“What everyone can agree about is that we haven’t achieved the goals that I and we wanted to achieve. Hopefully people respect my decision.”
Q: What’s next for Ronny Deila?
RD: “It’s very difficult to say. Hopefully, I’ll get a little bit of sun first! I will use time to reflect upon things but in football you never know what will happen.
“I still have high ambitions and feel strong and motivated to keep on doing the things I love.”
Q: Last question – will the Ronny Roar be heard if you win the league?
RD: “That’s what we’re fighting for now…the big one.”Posted Image
Five struggles of Ronny Deila as Celtic manager
http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/celtic/five-struggles-of-ronny-deila-as-celtic-manager-1-4104624
By
Andy Newport
Published: 15:38 Tuesday 19 April 2016
Ronny Deila’s two-year stint as Celtic boss appears to be coming to an end following Sunday’s disastrous Scottish Cup defeat to Rangers.
Andy Newport takes a look at where the Norwegian struggled with the Hoops:
PERIOD OF DOWNSIZING
It cannot be forgotten that Deila took over at a time when the financial ambition of the club had been drastically scaled back. It was the very reason he got the job in the first place. Neil Lennon quit after becoming disillusioned with the Parkhead board’s thriftiness, while top targets like Roy Keane and David Moyes baulked at the meagre budget they would have had to work with. The 2012 financial implosion of Rangers left Celtic in a difficult conundrum – stick to spending big in a one-horse race and hope to rein the cash back by making it to the Champions League, or take a more prudent approach before only releasing funds once a group-stage slot had been confirmed. Chief executive Peter Lawwell opted for the latter.
EUROPEAN MISADVENTURES
With so much riding on qualification to Europe’s biggest competition, Deila was under pressure from the off. He had only been in the Hoops hot-seat for eight weeks when Celtic were dumped out of the Champions League following a 6-1 pounding from Legia Warsaw. Even when his side were given a second chance of making the money-rich group stage after the Poles were thrown out of the competition for fielding an ineligible player, they slumped once more against Maribor. They did make it to the last 32 of the Europa League before losing narrowly to Inter Milan but another Champions League failure against Malmo in this year’s qualifiers only increased the doubts about Deila’s leadership. It could be argued he was lucky to survive past Christmas after going through the Europa League group stage without a win.
POOR RECRUITMENT
Without the Champions League bonus money to fall back on, it was up to Deila to show his nous in the transfer market but few of his signings made a positive impact. After insisting he would not bring in loan players, he was then forced to borrow Manchester City pair Jason Denyer and John Guidetti after missing out on his first-choice picks. At least they worked, though, unlike permanent additions such as Stefan Scepovic, Gary Mackay-Steven, Stuart Armstrong, Dedryck Boyata, Saidy Janko, Nadir Ciftci, Scott Allan, Ryan Christie or Colin Kazim-Richards – who have either been outright flops or made little impression. As things stand, Deila’s badly balanced squad has 17 midfielders but only one reliable striker in Leigh Griffiths.
READ MORE – Erik Sviatchenko doubts Rangers’ title credentials
MAN-MANAGEMENT
The Celtic supporters lapped up the ‘Ronnie Roar’ when things were going well under Deila but things have not always appeared so rosy with some of his players. Kris Commons’ astonishing outburst when he was substituted during the Europa League defeat in Molde earlier this campaign revealed his fractious relationship with his manager. The former Scotland forward is arguably the most dangerous weapon on the Parkhead books but Deila did not seem to trust the 32-year-old. Motivation also looks a problem. Compared to the fired-up Rangers squad on Sunday, the Hoops laboured through what many felt was their most important match of the season.
HAMPDEN HORROR SHOWS
With his European record so shambolic, Deila could have taken the pressure off himself on the domestic front by landing a treble. Only two Parkhead bosses have managed the feat before – Jock Stein and Martin O’Neill – so it is not a given. However, the 40-year-old has had his chances. After landing the League Cup last March, Deila’s side have failed to win any since. Against Inverness in last term’s Scottish Cup semi-final they were hard done by as the officials failed to spot Caley Thistle defender Josh Meekings’ goal-line handball. But they were again lacklustre against County in the last four of this season’s League Cup and the penalty shoot-out defeat to their Old Firm rivals on Sunday was a sickener for the Celtic faithful.
Read more: http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/celtic/five-struggles-of-ronny-deila-as-celtic-manager-1-4104624#ixzz46fhs4WA0
Ronny Deila reveals how he suffered anxiety attacks while at Celtic
Gavin McCafferty
Published
21/11/2016 | 18:07
Ronny Deila has revealed the demands of being Celtic manager caused him anxiety attacks.
The Norwegian had sleepless nights and saw his personality affected during his two-year spell at Celtic Park.
The 41-year-old stepped down at the end of last season after winning a second consecutive title, but a failure to qualify for the Champions League and add to his sole League Cup success in the cup competitions had put him under pressure.
Deila told Norway’s NRK television channel: “I could have a stressful thought like: ‘We have to win this weekend.’ Then I would be soaked in sweat, my heart would be pounding and head aching. I could wake up at four in the morning and couldn’t fall asleep again.
“I almost got social anxiety, I was more passive. It took my freedom from me, the freedom to be myself. Then it became a question of values: can you do this for the rest of your life?”
Deila admitted he underestimated what he was letting himself in for when he left Norwegian title winners Stromsgodset to take over from Neil Lennon.
“But I would take the challenge at Celtic a thousand times again,” he added. “With hindsight I see that I didn’t have a chance to understand how big a a club Celtic is.
“We have 10 million fans, plays 60 games a season. You have to win all the time. One loss leads to unrest, two are a disaster and three, you are fired. It’s almost at that level.
“You do not get better by playing chess with your daughter for eight years. She gets better, not you. You have to go for something that is unsafe, where you do not know what’s going to happen.
“That’s the way you handle the different experiences that determine whether you are improving or not.”
More from Ronny
July 2017
Norwegian Deila was in charge for two of those titles as Celtic bid for ten-in-a-row — and hit back at the Ibrox chief.
He told SunSport: “That’s a stupid thing for him to say. It’s not Celtic’s fault that they were out of the league. Rangers ruined themselves by spending money they didn’t have.
“Celtic have won six titles in a row. Nobody can say anything different..
“To say it’s only two titles in a row because Rangers were out of the league is WRONG.
“Scottish football didn’t stop for four years. There were other good teams in the league and we had to beat them.
“Neil Lennon’s team did that for two seasons and then my players did the same. We were the best in Scotland.
“I will always be proud of those titles that I won at Celtic and nothing anyone else says can take them away from me.
“Myself, the coaching staff and the players at Celtic worked so hard for that success.
“It gives me a lot of pride and happiness that I am part of the club’s six-in-a-row — and hopefully they add more titles in the years to come.”
Deila left Celtic last May and is now managing Valerenga in his homeland after a spell out of the game.
He is trying to rebuild the Oslo club and insists he is BEMUSED by King’s decision to even discuss the Hoops.
Deila said: “You can’t build your own club if you are constantly looking at others.
“If you talk about what other teams are doing, then you end up shooting yourself in the foot.
“I don’t understand why the Rangers chairman is talking about Celtic and the titles they have won. They should concentrate on themselves. Rangers want to compete at the top level — but talking about other clubs isn’t the way to achieve it.”
Norwegian podcast interview
http://90minutecynic.com/the-deila-podcast-part-1/
http://90minutecynic.com/the-deila-podcast-part-2/
Deila, Translated – Part 1
Christian Wulff/
Celtic/
One response/
June 20, 2017
On the Norwegian podcast ‘Fotballklubben, Ronny Deila has given a fascinating insight into the events leading up to him becoming Celtic manager, his efforts to bring in a new culture at the club and the reasons why he could not continue in the role. In the first of two articles with extracts from the podcast, exclusively translated from Norwegian for 90minutecynic.com, Deila explains what happened behind the scenes when a young manager from a medium-sized club in Norway was approached by one of the biggest clubs in the world.
‘You have to experience Celtic before you can start comprehend what it’s like’ (Ronny Deila)
Deila: ‘About a month before I came to Glasgow the club had got in touch with me via a contact that Strømsgodset had at Manchester City. He said Celtic was interested and asked if I could come over to Manchester to meet them. It was a very informal meeting, chatting mostly about how Celtic had needed to change their way of doing things. Early this century Celtic could compete on wages with English Premier League clubs; they brought in Chris Sutton, John Hartson and managed to keep Henrik Larsson for many years. Then the TV revenue in England exploded, every club now getting something like 2 billion (£200 million) per club, while Celtic gets 30 million (£3 million), the same as Rosenborg would get in Norway. The difference is now so big that it forces you to think differently, to look at different markets, buy younger players, develop your own talent.’
Interviewer: ‘Scottish clubs could also afford to bring in big names in terms of managers. I mean, you’re probably not as expensive as Dick Advocaat?’
Deila: ‘Exactly. So we agreed on how Celtic had to be run and how they needed to do things differently. Then I didn’t hear much more for a while. I went to Marbella (during the mid-season break in Norway) with a mate. It had been a very good first part of season, second in the league despite all our injuries. This was a well deserved holiday.
While I was there Celtic phoned and said they wanted me to come to London the next day to meet the owner. To be honest, I was really enjoying my holiday but I obviously couldn’t say no. I flew over at 6am the next day. London was pouring with rain. I’d been given an address in a very nice area of the city, got a taxi there and rang the bell. Nobody answered. I phoned my contact and he said they were on their way back from lunch and just to ring the bell again as the maid would let me in.
When I got in I was showed to a room with a big harp, a massive piano and with big Irish murals on the wall. You could tell this was a man who knew his history, was intelligent and had money. I sat down and waited, feeling a bit like a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. They came back from lunch and I met the owner, who reminded me a bit of Donald Sutherland. I thought I just needed to tell them who I am and what I stand for and then whatever happens, happen. Again, it was quite informal.
After a while he said it was obvious that I knew what was I doing and asked whether I could replicate what I had done successfully at Strømsgodset in Scotland? I said I didn’t know, as I haven’t tried yet, but that I believed people are very much the same in Scotland and that what I’d done in Norway was transferable. Then he asked what I thought it be like to coach multi-millionaires? Again I said I didn’t know, I would need to try it.
It was all clever questions – this was clearly a man who knew what he was looking for, where he wanted to go and someone who could tell what people stood for. He did say it could be difficult for me to come to Celtic as an outsider, not knowing what it was all about and being as young as I was. He asked whether I thought it would be easier to be an assistant manager at first, learn that way and then take over as manager at a later time.
I said that if I were to be an assistant manager, it had to be under a really good leader. The owner said; “So it would have to be someone with a big enough name that you’d say ‘yes’ immediately to be their assistant? Like, you would you want to be Arsene Wenger’s assistant?”
And I said, yes, then of course would I’d want to be an assistant, who wouldn’t want to work with him.
Soon after that the meeting was over and I was back out in the rain, trying to get a taxi back to the airport to return to Marbella. I was so exhausted when I got back I turned off my phone and didn’t talk about Celtic with anyone for 24 hours. I only told my mate that I had been was myself so we’ll see what happens.
Two days later Celtic phoned again and said they were very interested in bringing me to the club. They thought it would be best that I started as an assistant manager in order to build up my experience in terms of the culture, the club and everything else, and then perhaps move up to the manager role eventually.
They asked whether I wanted to be Roy Keane’s assistant manager. I almost laughed out loud as the whole thing was so surrealistic. I have great respect for Roy Keane, he has a fantastic personality and it was an opportunity I just couldn’t say no to. It would have been an experience for life, no matter what would have happened, although I’m sure it would have been some tough times under him as well! So I agreed to be his assistant. Then the deal with Keane fell through and everything was up in the air again. Apparently, other managers were being discussed and a lot of talks taking place.
Two days after I’m back from Marbella, Celtic phoned me again and said they wanted me for the manager role. They had been enquiring about me all over, checking if I was strong enough to take on such a role. At that point there was no going back for me, not a single thought that I wasn’t going to do this. I was adamant that I was taking the job. I didn’t even look at the contract offer, I wasn’t interested in it at all, I just wanted the job.
I went into Jostein’s (Flo – sporting director at Strømsgodset) office and said I had been offered the Celtic manager job and that I wanted to go.
Jostein said: “You’re joking. That’s not true. That’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard”
I said: “Jostein, it’s true. They’ll going to phone you this afternoon.”
He just kept saying “you’re joking, this isn’t true”. He just couldn’t comprehend it.
Finally, he said: “Ronny Deila, do you know what it means to be manager of Celtic? You’ll have to be completely in charge, a total boss. You’re aware of that? You have to think very, very carefully about this.”
deila og flo
Ronny Deila and Jostein Flo at Strømsgodset (Photo: Drammens Tidende)
The negotiations between the two clubs started and they turned out to be very difficult. This was a Monday and the very next day we were playing Tromsdalen away in the cup. At this point the media interest had suddenly exploded. Peter (Lawwell) phoned me and said that Jostein had asked him to travel to Norway for face-to-face talks. He was reluctant to come and that Celtic wanted a quick resolution, otherwise they had to start looking for alternatives. It was a very stressful period and I felt under intense pressure, as it made it clear to me how much I wanted the job.
Peter eventually said he’d go to Oslo airport for talks on one condition; that I would come back with him to Scotland regardless of what happened during the negotiations. I said that’s fine, no problem.
We went up to Tromsdalen and lost in the cup, a terrible performance, total chaos around the match. My head probably wasn’t in the right place and the same for the players.
Then on the Thursday the talks between Peter and Jostein started at the airport in Oslo. I was at home but Peter said that he might bring me in early if the talks stalled. About five minutes after they started he phoned me and asked me to come in, as the clubs were miles apart. In one way my presence only made things worse because it brought a personal element (between him and Jostein) into what was a professional negotiation. But this was just too important to me and I that it might not happen if I didn’t get involved.
But no agreement was reached, Strømsgodset went away and Peter said; ‘We’re going to Scotland’. I got on the club’s private plane with my agent and Peter and flew to Glasgow. When we landed we were escorted to a car and as we drove away from the airport, Jostein phoned me:
“How’s my boy?”
“Yeah, I’m good, thanks”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Glasgow”
“You’re not in Glasgow, Ronny.”
“Yes, I’m in Glasgow, Jostein”
“No, you’re not”
“Yes, I am in Glasgow”
He finally believed me and asked me if I understood what kind of consequences that could have. But I said: “Jostein, I am going to manage Celtic. You just can’t stop this. Now both of you have to get a grip and agree on this”
I was telling him how Celtic were confident that Strømsgodset couldn’t stop me and that they would have ten lawyers for every one Strømsgodset had and it would end up in total chaos if they couldn’t agree between them. I had nine years at Strømsgodset, it had been a fantastic journey, but this was the opportunity I wanted. Jostein still wouldn’t budge, saying Celtic needed to match their demands and that I was worth that much to the club.
deila lawwell
(Photo: Eurosport)
I guess there was still the chance that this wouldn’t go ahead, but Peter is so experienced and seemed to have total control of the situation. In the car he said I’d be presented as the Celtic manager at noon the next day. It would be too much commotion if I went to a hotel in the city so Peter took me to his house outside of Glasgow to spend the night. But even there photographers were lurking in the bushes, managing to get pictures of us as we got out of the car.
I woke up the next day and nothing had happened, still no agreement, nobody talking to each other and it was only four hours left to the press conference.
We drove to Celtic Park, up Celtic Way and there is already about two thousand people there. It’s my first time at Celtic Park, this gigantic 60,000 seater stadium, I’m in a suit which isn’t really me and I step out to this big roar from the crowd, people saying “Welcome to Paradise”. Again, a surrealistic experience.
Then, about five minutes before the press conference is about to start, Peter says to me: “We’ve got a deal with Strømsgodset, it’s fine”.
As I’m about to put the pen on the paper, Peter looks me in the eyes and says: “Ronny, your life will never be the same”. And he was right.
Peter Lawwell and Jostein Flo are the two people in my life I have the biggest respect for, what they’ve meant for my career and what I’ve learnt from them is fantastic. And they get along fine now, they were both at my 40th birthday party – the negotiations were just work.’
Deila, Translated – Part 2
Christian Wulff/
Celtic/
No responses/
June 20, 2017
On the Norwegian podcast ‘Fotballklubben’, Ronny Deila has given a fascinating insight into the events leading up to him becoming Celtic manager, his efforts to bring in a new culture at the club and the reasons why he could not continue in the role.
In this second article with extracts from the podcast, exclusively translated from Norwegian for 90minutecynic.com, Deila talks about the role of the manager in Britain, his efforts to shape 24 hour athletes and how he came to the conclusion that his time at Celtic was up.
‘To be a part of Celtic is like being part of a family, the saying is “a club like no other”, and it’s true, it’s something special.’ (Ronny Deila)
Deila: ‘As a manager in Britain, you’re above everybody else. You’d never have a prank made on you or something like that, it’s total respect. They don’t even call you by your name, it’s just ‘’gaffer’’. The hierarchy is very fixed and strong in Britain. It’s a big thing being captain as well, you’re in charge of the group. Your captain is your right hand on the pitch and for me Scott Brown was great, we had a very good relationship, which was important. He was an essential player for me and he still is for the club.
In a way, the culture within the squad was similar to Norway 15 years ago, both in a good and bad way. It’s a tougher atmosphere, there is more yelling and harsh criticism between players. This is something we need more of in Norway; a winning mentality, big personalities driving each other on. You need to have something special about you if you are to succeed at the top level.
However, they were not as conscious around nutrition and the concept of being a “24-hour athlete” as we are in Norway. Quite frankly, it was shocking, but it had a lot to do with the wider society in Britain and the diet norms. It’s fried food, there is sugar in everything, alcohol, basically all the things that are the worst imaginable nutrition wise. We had to change everything about it at the club. I said to the nutrition expert at the club at the time that players can’t eat cornflakes for breakfast, and the answer I got was that they don’t like anything else! For me it would be better not to eat breakfast than having cornflakes, which they didn’t agree with’
‘The player’s fat percentage was being measured at Celtic but I didn’t trust the readings; on some of the players I couldn’t even see their abdominal muscles. I brought in the nutrition expert I had worked with at Strømsgodset and it turned out that I was right; the measurements were wrong and too lenient, the fat percentage was actually higher.
In my first six months at Celtic the squad lost a combined weight of 60 kilos (9 ½ stones). John Collins had a very European mind-set when it came to fitness, having played at Monaco. He was fitter – at almost 50 – then some of the players in the squad when I arrived.
It was difficult at the start but we achieved some good results and got the players on board. After all, everybody wants to have a better beach body! Virgil van Dijk weighed 104kg (16st 4lb) when I arrived and when he left for Southampton he was 95kg (15st) and looked like a proper athlete. He was the best football player I’ve ever coached but 9kg (1st 4lb) will have a big impact on your ability to quickly move around the pitch.
collins
Deila said John Collins was fitter than some of the players when he arrived at Celtic (Photo: BBC)
The drinking culture was different. It is a lot more of a working-class culture within football in Britain – which there is absolutely nothing wrong with – and everyone was professional before games as you just can’t get away with drinking regularly if you have 60-70 games a season and with the intense media scrutiny there is on players.
But when they are given the opportunity to drink, they do it properly, which is fair. Especially because they do it together, something we also used to do in Norway. You don’t go out separately, you go out as a team. You must be able to trust each other out on the field, in good times and bad times. You must experience things together, celebrate together and it should be painful when you lose with people telling some harsh truths. To achieve that kind of relationship you have to spend more time together than just at training’
Interviewer: ‘If you have to choose one memory above all others from your time at Celtic, what is your favourite?’
Deila: ‘Inter Milan at home. After a tough start that season our progress had been very good and in the second half of the season we were great, we hardly lost a game and we conceded the least amount of goals domestically by any Celtic team ever. In that period we met Inter at Celtic Park and that atmosphere with 60,000 people was incredible, the intensity from the crowd was like at a rock concert. When Guidetti made it 3-3 late in the game the whole stadium exploded and it was just insane. That feeling just can’t be bettered, with the fans applauding you off the pitch’
Interviewer: ‘60,000 on Celtic Park is completely different than 60,000 at Camp Nou?’
Deila: ‘Absolutely.’
Interviewer: ‘What was John Guidetti like?’
Deila: ‘Guidetti was great in the changing room, he had an energy out of this world; singing, dancing, talking and laughing. In that sense, he was a great loss when he went. On the pitch he read the game well, worked very hard, had a winning mentality, a very good free-kick taker but probably lacked a little bit of explosively. He had an illness when he was younger that basically reduced the muscle structure in his legs, which really put him back.’
Interviewer: ‘In terms of your biggest regret at Celtic, the one thing you’d wish you’d done differently?’
Deila: ‘We didn’t get the player recruitment right, especially the second season. We ended up with a squad that wasn’t balanced enough and we weren’t able to replace Van Dijk, Denayer and Guidetti. There’s reasons behind that which are a bit too sensitive to talk about, but I felt we didn’t manage that part properly and that’s my responsibility. Simple as that.’
It was difficult in terms of the wages we could offer, there was a lot of times we couldn’t compete with Championship clubs in England, with players we were interested in going to clubs like Norwich instead.’
Interviewer: ‘Many people mockingly say that to win the league with Celtic all you have to do is chose 11 players to put on the pitch. Was there any truth in that – if you don’t win the league with Celtic you’ve automatically done a bad job?’
Deila: ‘If you don’t win the league, you’re fired. It’s that simple. If you had a great side challenging you then not winning the league could maybe be accepted. However, the situation when I took over Celtic was that not winning the league would mean getting fired. But we won the league handsomely in the first season and we were a refereeing decision away from playing a cup final for the treble.
After a tough start, I’d say my first season was a great success. There was a generational shift underway when I took over. Neil Lennon had built up a great team, but in my view they were probably on a downward trajectory. We’d lost some players and the squad had to be renewed, so I had to build up a new team. I think the team we built that first season was very good.
I renewed my contract, everything was great and the club said they wanted to keep me for a long time. Then things can change incredibly fast – just ask Claudio Ranieri! You have to continuously perform and I think there are very few people who could handle this job. First of all you have to gain respect in a squad filled with multi-millionaires, every three days (when you have a game) you communicate your vision to millions of fans and you have to handle standing in front of 60,000 fans that demand that you win every game – league and cup.
The reason I lost my job at Celtic was essentially our failures in Europe. Our first half against Malmo at home was incredible, we were so good. All the colour had drained from Åge Hareide’s face (Malmo’s coach). We were 2-0 up and Stefan Johansen could have made it 3 when he was one-on-one with the goalkeeper. The stadium was rocking, it was amazing.
Then Jo Inge Berget – of all people – scored after half-time, but we made it 3-1 and were in control. Then in 93rd minute Jo Inge scored again. After that we just couldn’t handle the pressure in Malmo. We played a terrible game and I didn’t manage to get the players to perform, maybe I picked the wrong team as well.
berget
Jo Inge Berget celebrates after scoring against Celtic for Malmo.
But it was similar this season with Celtic leading 5-2 after the first game against Hapoel and then being so close to going out in Israel. It shows the incredible pressure everybody at the club is under when it comes to the qualifiers. At that time Champions League feels like it’s the be-all and end-all for the club so the pressure is so intense. It’s something you must experience to understand. There are many people talking about Celtic but unless you’ve personally been through that situation you can’t know what it feels like.
My second season was a failure. Like I said at that first press conference, I measure myself on whether the team is getting better. Throughout the whole first season we got better and better and better. Then we had a great pre-season, we did well in the first qualifying games, we beat Malmo in the home leg, everything was going upwards and then we lose in Malmo.
I lost Van Dijk, which really impacted on the group and the pressure on my position started to intensify. After that we had a couple of bad losses in the league and the pressure on me continued to increase throughout the season to such degree that I could tell it was starting to impact on the players’ performances as well.
The worst thing that could ever happen was that we lost the league to Aberdeen. The difference between the clubs is so big that if I didn’t win the league I might as well never come back to Glasgow and just retire as a coach. No way I was going to be the first manager to lose a league to Aberdeen since Alex Ferguson was there!
I thought: “This isn’t about Ronny Deila, this is about Celtic”. The best thing I could do to save the season, to release some positive energy among the players and make sure we won the league was to say that enough is enough, and that I would be leaving.
In the end, it was the best thing that could have happened for all parts with Brendan Rodgers coming in. If I was allowed to chose any manager to replace me, I would have chosen Brendan Rodgers. Because I know that we share a lot of the same ideas and values and that he would be able to really push through and develop that culture that we had tried to implement over those two seasons.
I’m very proud that 80% of his team (Brendan Rodgers’) are players that I brought in or that I developed and that six of those played in Scotland’s 2-2 game against England recently.
People who know football, people I talk to in Celtic and in Scottish football understands what has happened; there has been a generational shift and I played a part in changing that internal culture. That new generation coming through also got the experience of playing in the Champions League qualifiers, especially the pressure around the Malmo tie and then they managed to get through that game in Israel. They’ve now also had fantastic experience through playing in the Champions League. There is such a bright future for this team.
I was back at Celtic Park last year for the Champions League game against Barcelona. I would have preferred sitting in the corner with the fans, as watching from the director’s box is so boring. I’d much rather sit in the stand, have a hot dog and relax, than having to put on a suit and go into a VIP area. They even rejected me at one ground in Scotland because I wasn’t dressed smartly enough for the director’s box! But it was great seeing everybody again at the Barcelona game.
Celtic have changed everything. If I go back to Glasgow in 15 years’ time, people would still come up to me. If Henrik Larsson – the greatest of the greatest – went into Glasgow city centre, he’d be mobbed. And Celtic fans are everywhere, all over the world. To be a part of Celtic is like being part of a family. The saying is “a club like no other”, and it’s true, it’s something special.’
Ronny Deila: What I learned you can’t read in any book
Two-and-a-half years after leaving Celtic, Ronny Deila still thinks about his time at the club most days. “My freedom was taken away from me in Glasgow but I would do it 100 times again if I got the chance,” the Valerenga manager said this week. “My experience at Celtic will stay with me for a lifetime.”
Deila has a new task on his hands — raising up Valerenga into a club that the great city of Oslo can be proud of — but the scars from his two seasons in Scottish football remain. Ultimately, he failed in Glasgow, otherwise he would have stayed longer, though many Celtic fans still hold him in high esteem.
Deila says he was given a tough task when brought in by the Celtic board to replace Neil Lennon in 2014. “When I came to Celtic I had to do a big turnaround in the players,” he says. “Neil Lennon’s team had been successful but it was getting older, it was past its prime, and my job was to bring young players in and develop them. That was why I got the job — the board believed I could develop a younger team.
“So I brought in guys like Kris Ajer, Ryan Christie, Stuart Armstrong, Gary Mackay-Steven and Dedryck Boyata. Plus, I brought Callum McGregor and Tom Rogic into the first team. Both Callum and Tom were at Celtic when I arrived but they weren’t really involved in the top team. Callum had been away on loan but I wanted to put him in the team.
“It was my job to make Celtic younger as well as successful. It was all part of the challenge. My job was to make it work.”
Deila won a league and cup double in his opening season — and but for a piece of refereeing incompetence it would surely have been a treble — but then just the league title in 2015-16, a fact which hastened his departure.
“I learned so much as a coach and a person at Celtic,” he says. “I was thrown into a new league and a new culture, and into a much bigger club than Stromsgodset, where I had been.
“What I learned at Celtic, you couldn’t read in any book. Here in Norway, some coaches talk of the pressure we are under. I can guarantee you, that pressure is a small breeze compared to the pressure of managing Celtic.
“I learned how to cope with that pressure. How to play 60 games in a season. How to cope with having to win every weekend. How to [adjust] to a new culture and language. How Scottish football was thinking, and the mentality of the game in Britain. I could tell you 100 things I learnt about myself and football if you gave me the time.
Ajer is one of the players that Deila brought to CelticRUSSELL CHEYNE/REUTERS
“Maybe what I learnt most was that you must be clear, you must have clarity, as a manager. I think about that every day and try to offer it to my players here at Valerenga. I think I bring more clarity now to my work.”
What remains utterly intriguing about Deila and Celtic is the “what might have been” question. April 19, 2015 became key to his fate. Celtic had already won the League Cup and were marching towards the title, when a refereeing gaffe by Steven McLean denied them a 2-0 Scottish Cup semi-final half-time lead against Inverness Caledonian Thistle, never mind a red card for Josh Meekings, who had denied Leigh Griffiths a goal with his hand.
Had these fateful moments not occurred many — including Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive— believe that Deila would have become only the third manager in Celtic’s history to win a treble. Beating Championship side Falkirk in that year’s Scottish Cup final would surely not have troubled Celtic. So might his fate have been very different but for these chaotic moments?
“You cannot say for certain,” he says. “But it was very painful, not getting that treble. There were seven referees at that match at Hampden and they all missed that handball. It was very tough to take. You don’t know what would have happened in the final but missing out on the treble in this way was painful.
“We had a very strong team in that 2014-15 season. Once we got going we were very hard to beat. The team didn’t know how to lose, it didn’t think about losing. But we were denied that treble and it is history now.”
One other thing is fascinating about Deila’s time. Even now, so much of Brendan Rodgers’s favoured Celtic XI comprises players who were Deila’s players at Celtic. In his opening two seasons in Glasgow Rodgers grafted Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembélé on to Celtic, but it remained essentially Deila’s team.
Rodgers has achieved so much more than Deila with those players. Does it reflect well or badly on the Norwegian? “Oh, I think it reflects well on me,” he replies forcibly. “Like I said, my job was to bring in young players which I did — Ajer, Armstrong, Christie, Mackay-Steven — and to build a young team. It takes time for young players to develop and now I think you can see how good many of these players are.
“I think Brendan Rodgers is doing the same. I look at the job he is doing, in developing players, and I think he has been fantastic. To win six [domestic] trophies in a row — and it might be seven this weekend — is unbelievable. I am very impressed.”
Two players that Rodgers brought to Celtic were already on Deila’s radar, with much of the groundwork already done. “I tried to get Scott Sinclair to Celtic in 2015 but it couldn’t happen. I spoke to Scott, but I don’t think the money was there at the time. In any case, he wanted to stay in England, and go to Aston Villa.
“We also knew that we could get Moussa Dembélé. We knew about his situation at Fulham, that his contract there was ending, and John Collins and I went down to England to watch him. This wasn’t about me, it was a part of the process we had at Celtic. We wanted to get Dembélé in.”
If the chance ever came round again, would Deila change the way he managed Celtic? “There are lots of things I would do differently. I am a better manager now than I was then. Some things, of course, I would do the same again. But being successful, while also building a young team, is not easy.
“If I ever get the chance to manage again, in Britain or somewhere else in Europe, I think I will show that I am better for the experience I had at Celtic, and that I can handle it. I’m still only 43. There are some nights when I think, ‘I’m stopping this, I’m getting out of this job’, but most of the time I still love being a manager. I might still have another 20 years in this job.
“The one thing I don’t miss about Celtic is my freedom being taken away from me. I value my freedom a lot, but that goes when you are the manager of Celtic, because it is such a big job and you are very visible. In Glasgow, you can’t do this, and you can’t go there.
“It’s not like that in Norway. Here, even in a big city like Oslo, they don’t have the same attitude. I can be much freer here, and I like that aspect very much.”
Bacon and haggis- Scott Allan on Ronny Deila’s Fry Ups/High Protein fitness regime
https://videocelts.com/2020/08/blogs/latest-news/bacon-and-haggis-scott-allan-on-ronny-deilas-fry-ups-high-protein-fitness-regime/amp/
Joe McHugh Joe McHugh
August 20, 2020 Categories: Latest News
Tags: Ronny Deila, Scott Allan
Scott Allan has given an unlikely account of Ronny Deila’s nutritional regime during his two year reign as Celtic manager.
The Norwegian prompts mixed reactions from Celtic supporters, all will acknowledge him as a ‘nice guy’ but his ability as a manager is treated differently.
Some fans will point to a dire style of football that was emptying the ground game by game with Carlton Cole and Colin Kazim Richards among his signings while others will point to a revolutionary who was at the club at the wrong time, undermined by senior players hostile to his plans and thinking.
An early claim during the Deila years was that the diet and nutrition of the players was altered. Chips, tomato sauce and fizzy drinks were off the menus as the era of the 24-hour athlete was introduced.
Allan joined Celtic halfway through Deila’s two year reign but found the players enjoying Fry Up breakfasts before training rather than some carefully planned Nutritional programme.
The diet was billed as High Protein, with a fitness routine involving balance and pre-activation also catching Allan by surprise.
CLICK HERE to listen to the BBC Podcast
44 min 30 seconds
I came from Hibs where the diet, from a guy Flanny who is now at Rangers, was eating the best of the best, simple and healthy eating, going to Celtic and there was fry ups out for breakfast.
I’m diabetic, I’m going from Hibs in the Championship to Celtic, a big European team and we had haggis and bacon out for breakfast.
I swear to God, we had scrambled eggs, bacon, haggis. Strawberries and cream, that was Ronny’s favourite
Kenny MacIntyre: I thought it was the other way, that was the impression that I had
SA: It was a high fat diet; you’re meant to burn more fat for energy
KM: So I’m guessing training was tough then to burn that off.
SA: That’s why we were blown after 80 minutes every time. We were doing all sorts, we used to dance in front of these mirrors before training. You would hold your hips, lift your knee. I’ve never seen it anywhere else that I’ve ever been. It must have been a Norwegian thing at the time.
It was supposedly a high fat diet so that you burned more energy. I went to the Diabetic Clinic and they asked why my cholesterol was through the roof, I said ‘Because Ronny is feeding us fry ups!’
After a week I went back to my old stuff, I was eating breakfast in the house rather than go upstairs for breakfast. Even the Diabetic Clinic were asking about a problem with my cholesterol ‘How is cholesterol so high, I’m at Celtic, we get fry ups for breakfast.
“RIGHT NOW RONNY DEILA IS A BAD COP, YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO DO ANY WRONG.” – FORMER RANGERS BOSS REVEALS ASTONISHING JOURNALIST
Date: 11th October 2021 at 5:14pm
Written by: Paddy Sinat
Ronny Deila was always seen by many in the press as the ‘cheap option’ for Celtic at a time when their greatest rivals where starting up again as a new club in the Scottish lower leagues.
And to be fair to the press, that was also the view of many Celtic fans as well.
Even although Deila came with a fairly decent pedigree as a winner of the Norwegian Tippeligaen League and the Norwegian Cup, the fact that he was an unknown manager coming to one of the biggest clubs in the world meant that he was on a hiding to nothing.
Much the same way that Ange Postecoglou was before he started to put the press guys in their place.
Speaking on the Press Box podcast with Graeme Spiers, former Rangers manager Mark Warburton revealed that the press already had it in for Deila before he even took over the Rangers hotseat, “The best thing I ever learned about Glasgow was on my first day, I landed at Glasgow Airport and a very good journalist said to me, ‘There’s always a good cop and a bad cop in Glasgow.‘
He said, ‘Right now Ronny Deila is a bad cop, you won’t be able to do any wrong.’
“And I couldn’t understand what he’s talking about Graham. I think we’d beat Kilmarnock one nil with a very scrappy goal, it was, ‘Rangers storm on again’.
“And Celtic might win two nil and it goes, ‘Host of chances missed by Celtic in embarrassing display’.
“Anything was negative.”
That is an incredible insight into how the former Celtic gaffer was treated by the press in pre planned negative headlines that proved Deila was vilified from the minute he walked into the country.
What is also shows is the professionalism of journalism in Scotland doesn’t exist and it is little wonder Celtic fans do not trust the media.
Ex-Celtic boss Deila in Real Madrid claim as he praises Van Dijk
https://www.celticway.co.uk/news/23809017.ex-celtic-boss-deila-real-madrid-claim-praises-van-dijk/
23rd September
Celtic FC
Football
Sport
By Mark Walker
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Ronny Deila <i>(Image: SNS Images)</i>
Ronny Deila (Image: SNS Images)
Ronny Deila reckons the stress and pressure of managing Celtic was too big for him….but insists he could take charge of Real Madrid now because of how much he learned at the Hoops.
The Norwegian is now in charge of Club Brugge after he was controversially head-hunted last season from Belgian rivals Standard Liege.
Deila won two league titles and a League Cup during his two-year spell in Glasgow before quitting in 2016 and then went on to win the MLS Cup with New York City.
And he’s revealed how much of a toll it took on him. He said: “Few people can imagine how enormous the pressure is at Celtic.
“It is one of the largest clubs in the world. And I came from Strømsgodset, a small club at European level, comparable to, say, Eupen here in Belgium, where there are only 7 to 8,000 supporters in the stands.
READ MORE: Celtic’s £40m ‘unnecessary risk’ – expert accounts analysis
“At Celtic there were suddenly 60,000 and the club has a total of 10 million fans worldwide.
“The city of Glasgow is crazy about football. You have to win there. I wasn’t ready for it. I simply couldn’t prepare for something like that.
“Mentally it was challenging, to the extent that the fun was gone at the end. I was up. Then you have no chance.
“But I would absolutely do it again. I am very proud of my progress there. I built a team full of young players who were virtually unbeatable in the years that followed.
“At the time it was tough. The step was too big. It was like going from first grade to sixth grade.
“It will never be as hard as it was then. But because I have now acquired the necessary knowledge. I now even dare to say that I could manage any team…even Real Madrid.
“Because of Celtic I feel I am up for any challenge. ”
And Deila revealed the method in which he turned around Liverpool defender Virgin van Dijk’s career after he joined Celtic a year before him.
“I immediately saw he had everything for the top so I started working intensively with him,” he continued.
“He trained poorly because it was too easy for him in Scotland. And as a result, he was not fit.
“Under me, Virgil van Dijk lost eight kilos of fat. From then on he was a machine.”