He said: “It’s hard to say who are the best because I haven’t seen enough of every player. But I have eight or nine good defenders and that’s good.
“We work a lot in defence now in training, so we get the structure right and then we have to see in the performances who is best together over time.”
The Norwegian believes the Hoops are now equipped to challenge in all three domestic competitions as well as on the European stage.
He said: “I think we are better. If you look at the same time last year, we are in much better shape and also have a bigger squad and more people know what to expect in different roles.
“We are stronger as a squad now. Everyone knows how we play and it is easier to turn around players and switch. We have more people available, a lot of players have developed a lot. Tom Rogic or James Forrest didn’t do so much last year because of injuries, but this year they are becoming important in the team.
“We have improved; you can see that in Europe compared to last year and you can say that’s bad or what we’ve done is not good enough but it’s better than it was the year before.
“In the league, we have more points than we had last year. I think we’ve scored 23 goals in eight matches, that is double as many as we had last year.”
In addition to highlighting key numbers, Deila believes there are many positive factors surrounding the club.
“It excites me and gives me energy every time when they go on the pitch and I see they get better. There is so much talent in this group,
“I think we have more control of the games than we had last year. I think we were under pressure many times last year, I remember at home to Aberdeen in the last 30 minutes we couldn’t cope with them. We won the game but we had trouble.
“Away against Dundee it was 1-1 and we should have lost it, so I think there are a lot of positives this year.