Ronny Deila explains why he wants Carlton Cole

Ronny Deila wants to bring Carlton Cole’s leadership qualities to his help his youthful squad.

On the day that Nadir Ciftci opened his Celtic account the 31-year-old former West Ham striker watched the 6-0 rout of Dundee from the stand.

Cole scored three times in 26 appearances for West Ham last season but hasn’t played a competitive match since May 24 when the Hammers lost 2-0 at Newcastle with Sam Allerdyce’s departure announced within 30 minutes of the final whistle.

“He was here to look at the game, to get to know us and see the city and club,” Deila explained.

“We will have talks with him and see him in training as well, this week I think, and we will see if it is something that will happen or not.

“It is not (a trial), he has been in London his whole life, so he has to see what he is coming to and then we will see if it is something that he likes and we like as well.

“I think he is very good football player and he shown in the Premier League and also the Championship that he can score goals and he is different to what we have.

“He is a target man, very good in the air and strong and that is something that, if everything fits, could be good for us.”

Leigh Griffiths, Tom Rogic, Scott Brown plus a double from Emilio Izaguirre gave Celtic a comfortable win before Ciftci completed the scoring.

Looking at his side’s performance Deila added: “I was very happy about the performance. The whole day was very good with a lot of people in the stadium, it was a good atmosphere and the team played well for 90 minutes. We could have scored even more goals, and that’s a good thing when you win 6-0.

“There were so many good performances throughout the team. The players are getting better and so is the team, and today everyone showed real commitment for the whole 90 minutes and that’s good.

“We have worked a lot to find reasons (for last weekend’s defeat) and to get over it and move on and get back to the level we were at, and even get better, and I think the last two performances have been good and there’s a lot to build on.”