FORMER England international Owen Hargreaves claimed Ronny Deila wasn’t courageous enough in Celtic’s Europa League exit in the San Siro.
Last week Hargreaves’ BT Sport colleague Steve McManaman was branded “stupid” by the Hoops boss following comments at the end of the 3-3 draw at Parkhead.
The ex-Liverpool and Real Madrid ace slammed Deila and his players for taking a lap of honour in front of 60,000 fans after the first leg stalemate.
Now Hargreaves has joined the criticism of the Norwegian with his outspoken verdict on satellite TV.
The former Manchester United and Bayern Munich midfielder admitted he wasn’t impressed with Kris Commons only getting 12 minutes playing time.
And he questioned the substitution of Gary Mackay-Steven with Efe Ambrose following Virgil Van Dijk’s first-half sending-off.
Hargreaves said: “I didn’t quite understand it. Kris Commons was last season’s Player of the Year with 32 goals from 48 games.
“I thought Gary Mackay-Steven was the best player by a mile when he was on. I thought they could easily have made a change with Nir Bitton or Stefan Johansen.
“I don’t think they really did anything in the game.
“They needed to be brave. I thought the players were brave, but I don’t think the manager’s substitutions were brave enough.
“I think they could have got something out of this game because Inter were ordinary.”
Hargreaves also highlighted the lack of positional sense displayed by Israeli international Bitton.
He said: “Look at the goal. If he’s going to play defensive midfield his job is to stop goals.
“But he’s nowhere to be seen. Scott Brown wasn’t close enough, but that’s Bitton’s job and he didn’t do it.
“If you are going to play that position and you are not attacking or creating chances then you need to be there in those crucial moments. You need to do the job properly.”
Hargreaves, who was brought to Old Trafford by Sir Alex Ferguson in 2007, admitted he had sympathy with red card victim Van Dijk.
He added: “The referee got the first booking wrong. Van Dijk played the ball and I think Palacio made a meal of it.
“But when you are on a yellow card you need to be a little bit careful and Van Dijk showed his inexperience.
“He’s a talented young man, but he made the wrong decision in the second situation. He gave the referee the opportunity to give him another card.
“That was on 35 minutes and, with 10 men, it was always going to be a difficult ask for Celtic.”
Meanwhile newspaper columnist and former Celtic View editor Kevin McKenna took to social media last night to brand the popular Celtic manager “snide and cowardly” regarding some “inferred criticism’ of former Celtic manager Neil Lennon’s methods. McKenna reckons this undermines Ronny Delia’s credibility.
Aye, right.
