Ronny Deila: Celtic need to keep their cool after Aberdeen defeat

Ronny Deila called for calm heads after Celtic's lead over Aberdeen at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership was cut to three points with a 2-1 defeat at Pittodrie.

The visitors had looked in control of the match until the 31st minute when Dons wide-man Jonny Hayes, playing with a bandage on his hand after being bit by a dog, scored with a thunderous drive from 25 yards before debutant Simon Church added a second, leaving Leigh Griffiths' stoppage-time strike a mere consolation

Celtic have a massive goal difference advantage over the Dons but the pressure increases on Deila, who saw hopes of a domestic treble ended with a League Cup semi-final defeat to Ross County at Hampden Park on Sunday.

Asked if it was a time for calm, including among the Celtic directors, the Norwegian boss said: " Of course, that's what you need to do. If you lose your head you lose everything. It is very important to be calm.

"Everyone loses football matches but still we are in charge and I know the players and I know what I want and we will fight to the end to get the title back to Celtic Park and I really believe we can do it.

"We have a lot of quality in the team, we are going to be stronger.

"I am confident I can do this. All managers have problems at the start of their careers at different clubs. Look at Alex Ferguson and others.

"You get through periods and you get stronger.

"We are going to get through this together, we are going to win this league, fight for the Scottish Cup and get stronger."

When asked if back-to-back defeats constituted a crisis by Celtic standards, Deila said: "I accept that is a bad situation but the situation is also that we are top of the league by three points.

"Sometimes you fell like it is relegation almost.

"We just have to keep calm, (keep) working and keep doing what we are doing and in the end we will get the results."

Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes thought his side were deserving winners.

He said: "I thought Celtic started better, they showed good composure. It was a crackling atmosphere, frantic, too frantic for me in terms of their possession.

"For all that we seemed to work our way through the game and as soon as Jonny brought that bit of quality and scored the goal it put a whole different slant on the evening.

"From there on in we just got better and stronger and got the second goal quickly after it. It was quite comfortable after that.

"Although you're never totally comfortable because of the quality and the level of player Celtic have I did feel that the game was without real incident for the majority of the second half and that pleased me."