KRIS COMMONS last night admitted he is still rankled over Celtic's controversial semi-final Scottish Cup defeat which cost the Hoops the chance of a historic Treble.

 

Ronny Deila's men were leading 1-0 when a Josh Meekings handball was missed by referee Steven McLean.

Celtic then found themselves heading out of the tournament after an extra-time winner gave Inverness a 3-1 win..

Deila was on course to land a clean sweep of domestic trophies and would have been only the third Parkhead manager to achieve such a feat.

But Commons believes that Celtic's resolve will be strengthen sufficiently to push for a Treble next term.

"We will go into next season with the same mentality - to win all three next season," he said.

"That has been in my sights ever since I came through the door. Every single year we look to win the league, win the cups and reach the group stages of the Champions League. That is the four main targets for the season.

"This year was the closest we came to achieving it but lady luck was not on our side.

"Going back to the semi-final, the swing in the space of 10 minutes of thinking we should have had a penalty, been 2-0 up and they should have been down to 10 men to us actually going to 10 men and then going to 1-1 was probably the craziest I have ever been a part of.

"There is a reason why only two managers have ever achieved. Look at the managers, the players, the budgets and it is astronomical that only two managers have achieved it. You do need a little bit of luck and this year we didn't have the rub of the green."

And the player has acknowledged that under Neil Lennon, when Celtic were punching above their weight in the Uefa Champions League, that the club took their eye off the ball when it came to the domestic tournaments.

"This year there was more emphasis on the Treble because we were knocked out of the Champions League," he explained. "Under Neil when we were in the Champions League we probably took the cups a little bit for granted.

"It is difficult when you are playing for Celtic that you have such big games coming up."

Despite the challenge of going for the Treble again next term, Commons will still look to make inroads into the Champions League.

And the versatile attacker is confident that Celtic have learned lessons from last summer's debacle when the club couldn't find a way past Legia Warsaw and then Maribor when they were granted a second bite of the cherry.

Those early difficulties from Deila's initial reign were ironed out - Commons signed a two-year extension to his contract at the start of February this term - and he is adamant that Celtic are ready now to take another step into European football.

"It was hard," Commons told Radio Clyde. "There were too many changes, too quickly.

"Now, we are not trying to do training drills in games and work out what way Ronny wants us to play.

"We know how we wants us to play and what he expects of us.

"We are confident we can progress and get into the group stages of the competition."