Norwegian Deila led the Glasgow club to a league and cup double previous year in his first season and is close to delivering a fifth consecutive Scottish Premier League title. I’m going to wait until summer time and make a decision in the summer time. “Myself and the players will be giving everything we can to achieve this and I know that starting on Sunday we must all unite and drive the Club on and really go for what we all want as Celtic supporters – to be Scottish Champions once again”.
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“I only ever met Ronny at the pre-game press conference and had half an hour chatting with him”.
Within minutes of Celtic’s announcement yesterday that Deila’s tenure will end following the conclusion of their Scottish Premiership title defence next month, the Norwegian’s predecessor Neil Lennon publicly confirmed his interest in returning for a second spell in charge.
Striker Martyn Waghorn, the 26-year-old who has been nominated for the PFA Scotland Championship player of the year award, admits that his career was stalling at Wigan Athletic before his transfer to Ibrox but is now hoping to play for the promoted club in European competition. He came across as a gentleman, I found his company good and he spoke well about football.
Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell expressed gratitude for Deila’s efforts.
Among the bookies favourites to take over at the club are former Manchester United manager David Moyes, current Republic of Ireland assistant manager Roy Keane and club legend Henrik Larsson. “And I think that’s a very good thing and I have no problems with that”.
“This is what I wanted in football to play in these types of games and big derbies be it Arsenal v Tottenham or Rangers v Celtic”, he added.
The Northern Ireland boss is one of a number of candidates from the province being tipped for the post at Celtic Park.
Against Inverness in last term’s Scottish Cup semi-final they were hard done by as the officials failed to spot Caley Thistle defender Josh Meekings’ goal-line handball.
Speaking at his news briefing ahead of Saturday’s trip to Hull, Evans, a lifelong Celtic fan, was asked if replacing Deila in the Parkhead hot seat was something he considered.
“I would imagine they [the board] would want to find a successor as soon as possible with the Champions League qualifiers coming so early again”.
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Keane and Moyes held talks two years ago before going cool but are back in the frame, especially with the latter having been out of work since being sacked five months ago by Real Sociedad.
