Celtic managed to win the Scottish Premier league title without kicking the ball after Dundee United managed a win over Aberdeen, who have been one of their main competitors.
The title helped relieve a lot of pressure off manager Ronny Deila, whose appointment was viewed with a lot of scepticism by critics and pundits ahead of the new season. This is largely due to the relative inexperience of the Norwegian not with just Scottish football but as a manager. The club’s chief executive, Peter Lawwell, has admitted that Celtic did take a gamble in replacing an experienced manager like Neil Lennon with Deila.
Yet, the gamble appears to have been paid off with this impressive performance in the domestic competition yet again. Apart from having won the league title, Celtic have secured a double for the season. They were in the race to win three major titles, but an extra time defeat against Inverness in the Scottish cup final has blown away those hopes. The next major target for Deila will be to get the club become more competitive in European competitions. Qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League will be considered as a major achievement and it will also help the club immensely in terms of finances.
“He has done remarkably well. I’m really confident for the future that, after this first year, he now has a foundation. He’s a winner, he’s a champion and there will be a really solid foundation to take this magnificent club forward. The challenge is that, here at Celtic, nothing prepares you for the Celtic job. You really need to be in it before you know what it means and the demands of it, so he had to deal with that. He had to deal with creating and developing the team while, at the same time, having to win every week,” Lawwell said.