THEY enjoyed their celebrations inside Celtic Park yesterday afternoon - the tickertape, the music, the dancing, the kids on the pitch ...

the Ronny Roar.

Players and supporters alike drank it all in, but the problem is that they will always thirst for more. 'Here we go, 10-in-row', they chanted. One done, where's the next? For now, though, Ronny Deila is entitled to down tools and breathe in.

In what has been the most challenging chapter of his career, he can reflect with some satisfaction that he succeeded where at one stage many had expected him to fail.

The glorious end was in acute contrast to the painful beginning when the Champions League qualifiers, and even routine domestic games, were viewed through splayed fingers by the Celtic support.

"It was no fun," Deila has since admitted. "There was a period when I doubted whether I wanted to do it."

As the Norwegian himself has pointed out, that chilly November afternoon at Pittodrie, with the biting wind blowing in from the grey North Sea when his 10-man Celtic side netted a last-minute winner through Virgil van Dijk to see off Aberdeen, turned out to be, perhaps, the most significant result of his season.

It was where his now trademark celebration was born, an act that came out of an adrenalin-fuelled afternoon; a celebration that suggested he knew he had hooked himself a lifeline.

That was the result that kick-started it for him, with the playing squad slowly, steadily, tuning in to catch his drift. Pivotal to that was the influence of Scott Brown.

The absence of the Celtic skipper in those difficult early months of Deila's time cannot be underestimated. Vocal, driven, determined and a natural leader, Brown was as instrumental to the turnaround on the pitch as he was off it.

"He is so quick," said Deila earlier this season in reference to his captain's Fife accent. "Half the time I just try to laugh at the right moments, but I am getting to understand more."

He certainly understood the importance of his captain, since the midfielder has carried immense influence both on the pitch and in the dressing room.

If Deila privately felt let down when the midfielder was splashed across the front pages of a tabloid newspaper three days before the League Cup final in March, he opted to vocalise his discord internally.

By then, Celtic's show of togetherness behind the scenes was far more credible than it had been in the early months of the campaign.

By the time the winter transfer window had closed, Deila had got two of his targets - Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong have been seamless additions - but was well on his way to winning over one of the key dissidents.

Kris Commons was a cert to quit Celtic at the turn of the year. Such was the versatile playmaker's belief that he had played his final game for the club that he threw his boots to the crowd at Hamilton in the middle of January, a gesture widely interpreted as his farewell speech.

The player was irked at his sporadic appearances, at the perceived lack of respect for his position within the pecking order of the dressing room; his manager was irritated that he was still not giving enough in training or in games.

A clear-the-air meeting was held at Lennoxtown. The player's agent met with both Deila and chief executive Peter Lawwell. Commons penned a new deal with the club at the beginning of February and, since then, has essentially been a mainstay in the side.

As has been his way at Celtic, Commons reserved some of his finest moments for Rangers. The first Old Firm game in three years was held at Hampden in the semi-final of the League Cup, and Deila would have found any revival short-lived had he been unable to see off the Ibrox side.

While Aberdeen breathed down their neck and kept the title challenge going until April, Celtic were always going to win the league since there are no other teams with the resources to properly fight them for the championship.

That is not a criticism; they can only beat who and what is before them, but it does make it difficult to evaluate just where this Celtic team are.

That they performed admirably against Inter Milan in the Europa League has been offered up by both players and management, yet with a little more conviction and fewer individual mistakes, Celtic could have seen off the Italians.

But if Deila is right and his team has progressed and developed both collectively and as individuals over the last nine months, then this summer will be its proof.

It is one thing to lord it over the rest domestically, but quite another to do it in Europe.

Qualifying for the Champions League group stages would be worthy of a party to rival yesterday's; it is by far a bigger achievement to negotiate the perilous rounds of qualifiers in the embryonic stages of the season and land a ticket into the esteemed playground of the Champions League than it is to win the SPFL Premiership.

The bounty for such an achievement is eye-watering. Failure to do so leaves a hangover that can last well into the domestic season.

The party was fun, but the next one is already in the planning.