Ronny Deila, the Celtic manager, dismissed Age Hareide’s apparent attempts to unsettle him yesterday and said his club would not lower itself to exchanging insults with Champions League rivals Malmo.
After a tight, 3-2 Celtic win in the play-off first leg the return game in Sweden on Tuesday was given added spice when Johan Wiland, the Malmo goalkeeper, described Celtic players as “pigs” and said Leigh Griffiths had acted like a child. Manager Hareide also questioned their fitness and said they did not have the legs to last for 90 minutes.
The attempt to get under Deila’s skin seemed not to have worked, though, given his calm, smiling response yesterday. “For me, that’s funny,” said Deila of Hareide’s remark. “As I remember, we won 3-2 on Wednesday. That is the first thing. We didn’t lose 3-0 or 4-0. We won the game and I’ve seen Mr Hareide very high up and very low down in Norway many times. He’s a funny guy and he tries to play these games and that’s something you just have to leave.
“Hopefully, he won’t ruin his own brain: that’s the most important thing. You need to ask him what kind of tactic that is. We are a very fit team and we played some great football on Wednesday and we’re really looking forward to Tuesday. It’s going to be a big game.”
Deila said he was perplexed by Wiland’s accusation that Celtic had behaved like pigs. “I’ve watched the game again and I didn’t see anything wrong. It was a fair game and remarks like that are just too low-level to comment on. It’s not the Celtic way to do that. It’s up to them if they want to talk about us. I think the motivation for this [second leg] game is no problem. I don’t think we need any extra comments to do that.”
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Deila’s good humour prompted one reporter to ask which animal best represented Celtic, if not pigs. “Hopefully a pretty one. Lions! We are lions!”
Celtic received welcome news about the hamstring strain which led to Mikael Lustig being stretchered off during the Malmo game. It had been feared he would be out for weeks, but Deila even hinted at an outside chance of him making the second leg, although that would seem highly unlikely.
“The hamstring injury is not as bad as we first thought. He is not going to be available for Dundee United [at Tannadice this afternoon] but may be okay for Tuesday, although that may be too early for him. Mikael has had a lot of injuries in the past, pulled muscles and that kind of thing, so he feared the worst. We will see how he is over the next two days before we decide whether or not he travels to Sweden.”
Deila said he was aware of speculation linking Jason Denayer and Gary Hooper with returns to Celtic on loan, but he was non-committal on both of them.