Boss Ronny Deila admits his side will need to improve if they are to continue their Champions League quest after Celtic overcame part-time Icelandic side Stjarnan eventually easily in their second qualifier.
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Carrying a 2-0 lead from the first leg at Celtic Park, Deila’s men were stunned when Stjarnan opened the scoring last night in the seventh minute through Olafur Finsen.
However, midfielder Nir Bitton eased the nerves when he levelled in the 32nd minute from a Stefan Johansen corner and when defender Charlie Mulgrew fired in a second early in the second half it was all over as a contest with late goals from substitute Leigh Griffiths and Johansen making it 6-1 on aggregate. Avoiding injuries is a top priority for the visitors as the qualifiers will pit them against stronger teams and the Champions League is a challenging competition. I saw them play the first leg at home against the team from Montenegro and it is a big step up from what we have met here.
“Nadir has said he is a little bit disappointed but that’s okay, we knew that this could happen and we have a lot of strikers in the club that can do the job when he is out”. “We will look to try and win the game and then we can see what happens after that”. “4-1 is a positive result and I’m looking forward to the next match”.
“He has to take a trip to Scotland and look at some games there”, the Celtic manager said.
Although he had insisted beforehand that the artificial pitch at Stjarnan’s Samsungvollur ground would not be a problem, Deila felt it did impact on Celtic’s display.
“It’s hard to say what the performance was but when you play on artificial pitch that’s dry it’s sticky and everything goes slow”, he told reporters. We always ask for a pitch to be watered but they said it was broken.
“But that is how it is, we have to handle every circumstance and surface you play on and we made it, we are through to the next round”.
Ciftci’s progress will not be helped by the Turk being banned for the first six games of the domestic season. “But our performance in the tie was very good and I’m very proud of my players”. “They were, of course, under pressure when he scored our goal”.
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“Celtic nearly didn’t create any chances in the first half, apart from set pieces”, said Sigmundsson. “We went through, that’s the most important thing, and we meet a better team now in the next round – much better team”. “We didn’t want to start the game like that and concede a goal so early”.
