Damaged Ronny Deila must deliver as he mixes with the also rans

There has been a fevered debate about Celtic’s Norwegian coach in recent days, some of it taking off into flights of fancy. When Deila arrived at Celtic he was viewed as neither a messiah nor an outrageous risk, but somewhere in between. Deila’s appointment, to most observers, carried an element of risk, but also seemed enterprising and imaginative by the Celtic board.

What Deila had to do was not just sweep all before him domestically in Scotland — and he hasn’t done that yet — but also advance Celtic’s standing in European competition. In this context he still has it all to do, to prove to the more discerning Celtic supporter that he is as a coach of clout and inspiration.

In time, just as with Mark Warburton at Rangers, we will have a fuller body of evidence by which to properly judge Deila. That point might still be two years away. Nonetheless, football managers live in the cruel moment, to be judged week by week, and Celtic’s head coach is having a rocky time of it right now. Deila is living through an episode of failure, in which he carries the can.

The Europa League offers redemption of a sort. It is a decided second best to the Champions League but some good results against Ajax, Fenerbahçe and Molde will make the long-term case for Deila seem more persuasive. Certainly, what he cannot afford are further flops or more rank performances in the European months ahead. Were that to happen, some serious doubts would apply about Deila’s ability to perform at a higher football level.

I’ve heard certain Celtic fans grouching along the usual lines: an unambitious, tight-fisted board which is holding their club back. But the evidence for this seems flimsy. The club has been run pretty well in recent years, certainly to the extent that no winding-ups have taken place, no history timelines painfully broken. In this context, given the mayhem elsewhere in Scottish football, Celtic should count themselves fortunate.

Only in pretty peculiar circumstances would a footballer carrying a transfer fee of £5 million or more come to Celtic. The limited value of Scottish football makes that a blunt fact. Moreover, no such player is needed by Celtic for nine months of the year, save for the odd week in European competition. It just isn’t a sustainable model for the club — or indeed the player — to pursue.

This has been a painful week for the Parkhead club, and yesterday’s Europa League draw of faded grandeur only partly makes up for that. Deila, a coach facing fresh scrutiny, needs to deliver anew.

Absent Adam has job on his hands

A Scotland squad minus the omitted Charlie Adam seems a peculiar case. In recent years the Stoke City midfielder has been intermittently lauded in English football, but it evidently hasn’t been enough to persuade Gordon Strachan of his guaranteed value.

Strachan obviously feels satisfied enough with his midfield options to be able to leave Adam out. So these looming Euro 2016 qualifiers against Georgia and Germany over the next 10 days will be negotiated without one of the mavericks of British football.

In one sense, it signals a decline in Adam’s career. That was inevitable, having been bought by Liverpool for £7million in 2011 and, after failing to prevail at Anfield, then being moved on to Stoke. The Potteries club is a lesser stage and Adam has had to adjust to life where his team, more often than not, is up against it.

This 29-year-old’s skill is not in doubt, nor his wonderful audacity as shown by his long-range strike at Chelsea last season. But there are fitness and mobility issues around Adam which continue to dog him, both at club and international level. In truth, he seems a throwback, physically, as a footballer, to an age when being lithe and honed were not the essentials.

I hope we see Charlie Adam back in a Scotland team — his raw talent would warrant it. But Charlie himself must see he has a job on his hands preserving his career at an elite level.

It’s hard up north for Hughes

Some believe John Hughes at Caley Thistle has the hardest job in the Ladbrokes Premiership — and they might be right. Hughes’s team, stranded second-bottom of the league, and facing Dundee at Dens Park this afternoon, have started their campaign: P5 W0 D2 L3. Two points out of 15 seems to point to a long season ahead.

Hughes lost Graeme Shinnie and Marley Watkins over the summer, has now lost Aaron Doran to injury for the season, and has Celtic preying upon the club’s best player, Ryan Christie.

And yet, it is not an impossible job in Inverness. Look at Terry Butcher’s sequence of high finishes with the club, let alone Hughes’s magnificent season last term, ending with the Scottish Cup.

The problem any football manager has is, you can wave a magic wand only so many times. Doesn’t Terry Butcher know this better than anyone?

I salute these racers

Dario Franchitti’s friend, Dan Wheldon, was killed in an IndyCar race. So was Justin Wilson, the British racer, who died in a crash on Monday. And Franchitti himself, now based back in Scotland, knows how lucky he was to survive the crash he had in October 2013, in which he suffered head injuries, two fractured vertebrae, a broken ankle, with the neurological fallout from it still affecting him. That incident ended Franchitti’s memorable IndyCar racing career.

Next weekend the 42-year-old Scot will showcase some of his cars at Holyrood, in an event celebrating classic racing cars. I admire these racing men greatly, though death continues to haunt their sport.