RONNY SAID HE WAS QUITTING TWO WEEKS AGO,’ DAD
RONNY DEILA’S dad Arne has revealed his son made the decision to quit Celtic at least TWO WEEKS ago.
And he admitted he is relieved Ronny is leaving the club because the manager’s job is only going to get tougher.
Deila will see out the last five league games of the season before returning to Norway after two years in charge at Parkhead.
His father said: “I feel quite well about the news. The pressure in the job is enormous and I’m so happy Ronny can finally relax again.
“It was his decision to go. He told me some time ago he had thought about it – a couple of weeks ago.”
The former Stromsgodset gaffer was struggling under the strain of managing such a huge club and that fact is highlighted in his statistics.
He was in charge for 113 games and won 72, drew 21 and lost 20. That left him with a win ratio of 63.7 per cent, but that is below that of flop John Barnes who was axed following the dire Scottish Cup defeat from Inverness Caley Thistle in 2000. He didn’t even last a full season, but his ratio was 65.5 per cent.
Deila’s record was better, though, than that of Tony Mowbray, another who didn’t last an entire campaign in the Hoops’ hot-seat. He cost £2million in compensation when he arrived from West Brom in 2009, but got the bullet in March the following year after a series of bad results, culminating in a 4-0 drubbing from St Mirren in Paisley. His ratio was only 51.1 per cent.
It took Neil Lennon 130 games before he sampled his 20th defeat as Celtic gaffer and it was 114 for Gordon Strachan. Martin O’Neill went 158 matches before he reached the figure.
