He failed that, even though he got a second bite of the cherry after the Legia Warsaw fiasco. It was a failure that will cost the club somewhere in the region of £10 million. And it also rather put the mockers on their entire season. With no Old Firm games to enjoy, the 'Champions League nights' at Celtic Park are the only matches which fill the stadium now, and the only ones which produce genuine excitement and anticipation. A Europa League tie against a Romanian team which sounds like it was named after a hatchback car doesn't quite get the juices flowing in the same way.
So, Deila's list of objectives for 2014/15 now reads as follows:
- a decent Europa League run
- win both domestic cups
- win the league by a country mile
After all, the title is a given, such is the difference in resources - Celtic may have cut their wage bill, but it's still ten times that of any other top flight club. Heck, they'd even win the league if Ally McCoist was in charge. And everyone knows that, which is why Deila has to win it convincingly if he is to build up some credit.
Well, October ended with the Bhoys only fourth in the league. Yes, they're only three points off top and have a game in hand, but defeats at Inverness and at home to Hamilton, and draws at Dundee and at home to Motherwell, are not the stuff dreams are made of.
On the scale of Celtic managers, which ranges from Jock Stein at one extreme to John Barnes at the other, Deila maybe rates a tiny bit above Tony Mowbray right now.
It's early days, of course. The Norwegian has changed a lot tactically, and there have been a few signs recently - a 5-0 win in Dingwall, the 6-0 League Cup thumping of Partick Thistle - to suggest that the attackers might be starting to click. But if Celtic win the league with only a little to spare, gets dumped out of the Europa League early in the new year, and screw up in the cups in a way that Neil Lennon would be proud of, then Deila might be 'one and done,' as Americans describe sports coaches who are dismissed after only a single season. The board can't afford two consecutive years without Zadok The Priest being played over the home tannoy.
If Deila succeeds, it will be because of John Guidetti.
He's lucky to have the Swedish striker at all - his loan signing on deadline day from Manchester City wasn't so much at the eleventh hour as at about the thirteenth. But the SFA ratified it (though he can't play in Europe), and it's just as well for Deila that they did. Guidetti's hat-trick in midweek took him to eight goals for the season, all in the last six games. And it's not just the goals; part of Celtic's early struggles up front were because of the lack of a frontman who could lead the line on his own in Deila's preferred 4-2-3-1 setup. Anthony Stokes, Leigh Griffiths, Teemu Pukki (now gone), Stefan Scepovic so far - none looked comfortable without a partner. But Guidetti can do it on his own, at least against Scottish defences.
In the last couple of years, Neil Lennon relied heavily on Kris Commons to come up with a goal when the team weren't playing well. Now Guidetti has assumed that role, with gusto. So it's no surprise that thoughts have already turned to what happens when his loan deal ends in the summer...which coincides with the end of his contract at Manchester City.
The trouble is, he's far too good for this league. Already he compares favourably to Celtic's most recent attacking success, Gary Hooper, who left for Norwich City. His stock was sufficiently high last season that he had a loan spell at Stoke...though he didn't see much action. Folk on the continent will know of him too - he scored 20 goals for Feyenoord in the Dutch League in 2011/12. He will be a pretty warm commodity, if maybe not a piping hot one.
And to stay at Celtic, Guidetti would either need to take a wage cut, or convince Celtic to break their own wage structure. It would be some gamble, given that the club were already cutting costs when they were playing in the Champions League, to spunk two or three million quid a year on one player's wages whilst trying to compensate for this season's stark drop in income.
But that's all several months ahead. Right now, Celtic have the league's best player by a country mile, and he's the reason they'll probably walk the league again...and the reason Ronny Deila's stay in Glasgow will last beyond this summer at least.
L.
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