Deila: Treble chance down to us

The Scottish League Cup winners are eight points clear of Aberdeen at the top of the Scottish Premiership with six games remaining and strong favourites to make it four in a row.

Asked ahead of the trip to Hampden Park on Sunday if he felt he had a treble-winning squad at his disposal, the Norwegian boss said:

"We will see but I really believe that we can do it and now it is up to us.

"If we are performing well, we know that we are very hard to beat.

"We have shown that for a long, long time now and again, our biggest opponent is ourselves.

"We need to keep our mind on the right things.

"I have felt a sense of excitement for a long time. But it is very important to focus on the next training session and next game, instead of thinking of what might be, thinking of what we have to do to make it as good as possible now."

Deila believes treble success will help not only attract players to the club this summer, but also help keep those who are already at Parkhead and perhaps thinking of moving to pastures new.

The former Stromsgodset boss said: "The players are happy, they enjoy being in Glasgow and at Celtic and if they see the team is going forward they want to stay, that is my experience.

"It's my job to make the staff and players feel well and have fun and looking forward to coming to work.

"It is not like that everywhere. I've had players come to me who are very unhappy and then money is nothing, in my opinion."

The day after Wednesday night's 4-1 home win over Kilmarnock, Deila travelled south to see Celtic's development team lose on penalties to Manchester City in the quarter-final of the Premier League International Cup.

Out of favour striker Stefan Scepovic, who was signed from Sporting Gijon for a reported fee of £2.3million in September, was given some game time and Deila, who has Anthony Stokes suspended and Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong cup-tied for the Caley game, revealed the 25-year-old Serbia international will be in his plans for Hampden.

He said: "Scepovic is in the squad for Sunday. He needed a game instead of sitting on the bench on Wednesday.

"His contribution is going up and down. There is competition, it's tough to switch around when you have other strikers doing well.

"But he has some qualities that the others don't have and he's trying to improve."