RONNY DEILA patience is wearing thin with Swedish striker John Guidetti, describing the player as currently ‘not good enough’ to start for Celtic and dismissing the importance of the on-loan Manchester City striker committing his future to Celtic.
Guidetti was quoted pre-match with a ‘come and get me’ call to his former club Feyenoord with his agent talking up the likely wages available to the player from various clubs on the continent. Previously Southampton dampened speculation regarding their reported interest in the player who is looking an increasingly frustrated figure in the hoops.
The Celtic manager was asked by a Dutch television journalist about Guidetti’s comments about re-joining Feyenoord and said:
‘I don’t know more than you, maybe you know more, I don’t know.
“I don’t know because I haven’t spoken to him for a few days.
‘But I understand he has been saying something in the press again about Feyenoord, or something.
‘If he wants to stay here it’s a possibility but I understand that things are going on. I want him to stay if he wants to stay. If he doesn’t want to stay we have to find someone else because we can’t force him to stay here, a lot of players want to stay at Celtic.’
Ronny was then asked why Guidetti has not been in the starting line-up for Celtic recently and replied: ‘That’s an easy question to answer, because he isn’t good enough, you have to be good enough to play every game. Today he was injured, he’s a good player and hopefully he’ll be back soon.’
Celtic’s interest in making Guidetti’s move to Glasgow permanent also seems to be waning with the Celtic manager simply looking to his involvement for the remaining few months of this season, in which Celtic are chasing a domestic treble.
‘He will be here for the rest of the season, and we are really going to get the best out of him in these last months.”
Delia understands that Guidetti is merely a loan signing and is aware that Manchester City have no interest in the player so the Swede is entitled to speak to potential suitors, saying: “It’s his right to do that. He has to do what is best for him
‘But now, he and I have to be professional and do the job here at Celtic.
‘If he is not injured, he can be involved on Sunday.’
Ronny was far from happy after last night’s shock defeat by St Johnstone, although he denies that his Celtic side were guilty of complacency. He said: ‘There is no complacency here. We said after the weekend win that it is not over.
‘We are still in a good position.
‘Everyone can understand what is happening.
‘It was lack of energy. We could not move as quickly as we normally do, and St Johnstone scored with their only chance.
‘We didn’t score with our chances, so it was always going to be tough.’
This was probably a domestic match that Celtic could afford to lose having gone six points ahead of nearest rivals Aberdeen at the weekend with an eventually emphatic 4-0 victory. Celtic’s goal difference is also superior to the Dons. Ronny was simply glad that the blip happened in this match rather than in the next two, saying ‘It’s important that it didn’t happen in a cup match.
‘But, the league is always the most important thing for us, so we are disappointed and must now move on.
‘We hope to have Kris Commons available for Sunday’s game, but we will have to wait and see how he is tomorrow.’
