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Celtic fans aren’t interested in criminal tales and sleepless nights

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DeilaAhead of the most important Premiership match of his Celtic tenure Ronny Deila has decided to personalise Celtic’s problems.

Since the last home match- a 3-1 win over St Johnstone- Celtic supporters have witnessed three abysmal performances that have turned the spotlight on the suitability of Deila to manage the club.

The expectation of a Celtic manager is that the club reaches the group stage of the Champions League and compete reasonably at that level.

Three times in the last decade Celtic have reached the last 16 of the elite tournament, as recently as 2012/13 Neil Lennon’s’ side picked up 10 points including a memorable pair of wins over Spartak Moscow.

Following the horror shows against Ross County, Aberdeen and East Kilbride qualifying for the Champions League is barely discussed among Celtic fans with a real threat, mainly self inflicted, coming domestically.

Winning the Scottish treble is an artificial benchmark, it’s something Celtic rarely achieve. Jock Stein reached two European Cup finals and won the same amount of domestic trebles.

Being entertained while watching a team progress and develop is the expectation of most supporters, especially season ticket holders. There has been little evidence this season of any of those.

Kieran Tierney’s emergence and the goals of Leigh Griffiths have been the only highlights of the season so far.

Being dumped out of the Champions League, failing to win a single Europa League tie, losing vital domestic matches and the failure of new signings to make an impact on the team has caused alarm.

When a journalist hears a football manager talk about feeling like a criminal his job is done for the day, the headline speaks for itself and they can return to the office satisfied.

For Celtic supporters the feeling is underwhelming. Despite a club website and television channel there is no insight into the manager’s thinking, what is going wrong, what he will do to correct it.

Over the last three matches the lightweight attacking options of Stuart Armstrong, Callum McGregor, Gary Mackay-Steven and James Forrest have made little impact. Their performances have raised a case for the inclusion of Scott Allan and Ryan Christie but neither of those signings has had any recent game time.

A defence containing Efe Ambrose and Dedryck Boyata doesn’t inspire confidence.

Patrick Roberts was signed with a fanfare, made an instant impact in a Development League match but failed to make the bench against East Kilbride.

Erik Sviatchenko looks to have some of the qualities required of a central defender, Colin Kazim Richards seems capable of partnering Leigh Griffiths in attack but that doesn’t sit with the 4-2-3-1 system that Deila has refused to waver from.

From this distance there appears to be plenty of grounds for concern over the back to back home matches with Ross County and Inverness Caley Thistle- hardly the thoughts of a team with designs on playing Champions League football in seven months time.

Discussing sleepless nights and feeling like a criminal makes for easy newspaper stories and in the big picture mean little provided Deila’s team delivers tomorrow.

A clean sheet and scoring a few goals will negate many of the issues of the last fortnight, Hearts managed to do that at Dingwall in midweek.

A repeat against Inverness Caley Thistle next Saturday would be a tentative sign of progress and allow the manager to sleep soundly without feeling like a criminal.

Deila’s jury will be out in force tomorrow afternoon expecting a reaction from his team and signs of a statement in the race for the title.

Anything less and the fallout will result in more than sleepless nights.

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