REST - and be thankful. No, not the next destination on Ronny Deila's discovering-Scotland tour.

Instead, it will be the Celtic manager's order to his players as they prepare for a fixture-packed festive season.

Back-to-back single-goal victories against Partick Thistle and Motherwell have highlighted the need to re-charge batteries.

The Hoops did manage to bang four past 10-man Hearts in the Scottish Cup prior to this misfiring SPFL double-header.

But, that has been the exception rather than the rule as the conversion rate since they trounced the Jags 6-0 at the end of October has dropped like the temperature.

Deila knows the importance of keeping his hit men in red-hot form.

And he wants his side to get back to the standard they had set for themselves when they head to Croatia for Thursday's final Europa League group game against Dinamo Zagreb.

The Parkhead boss refuses to treat this as a meaningless match.

But he will be glad to get it out of the way and is looking forward to the frequency of their fixtures slowing down - albeit temporarily.

Deila reckons this will be an early Christmas present for his battle-weary troops, and is relishing having more time to spend with his Bhoys on the training field.

He is confident this will help cure what is ailing them in front of goal.

"I think it is a little bit about confidence, and about skills," said the Norwegian when reflecting on the copious missed opportunities which have made the closing stages of the last two games much less comfortable than they should have been.

He continued: "We need to work in training now. But, then again, we don't train so much because of all the matches we are playing.

"So, after this week it will be good to get good training into the midweeks and build on that.

"That's going to be important."

Deila agrees he would have much more to worry about if his players were not creating all these chances to miss, with golden-Bhoy John Guidetti among those who have seen their finishing lose some of its lustre.

The upside is that one goal has been enough to earn them maximum points in the last two outings, confirming that the Hoops defence is now back on Scrooge mode.

After suffering from irritating inconsistency, former Player of the Year Emilio Izaguirre has been particularly impressive, and the manager said: "Yes, Izzy is playing good football.

"I think the back four is calm and safe, and they have a good goalkeeper behind them, as well.

"But, we are best when we work as a team because, when you look at the first 20 minutes against Motherwell, we were all over them.

"This is not only about keeping our opponent away from our goal, but it is also about winning the ball in good situations so that we can counter-attack effectively.

"We did that very well in the first half at Motherwell. That was pleasing to see."

Nevertheless, Deila accepts that failing to finish off moves - and opponents - leaves the door open to disappointment.

"The first thing is that we create chances," he said.

"But, we have to be more effective. We can't have eight or 12 chances in every game.

"We need to score more goals."

Celtic's failings in this department have been highlighted in their European matches this season, as far back as when they passed up the chance to grab a victory in Maribor to bring back to Parkhead for the second leg of their Champions League play off tie.

It was the same story in the two games against Astra.

They won the first of their double-header 1-0, but they could not add to their first-half lead when they met again in Giurgiu, and had to settle for a draw when the Romanians hit back near the end.

That delayed Celtic's qualification for the last-32.

They are now in next week's draw for the knock-out rounds, which kick off in February.

But this will not encourage Deila to take his foot off the gas this week in Zagreb.

He will think long and hard before deciding on the travelling party, but already it would appear that Craig Gordon's knee and Scott Brown's suspension threat - another booking against Dinamo would see him miss the first leg of the last-32 tie - will see them among those left behind.

What Deila will not do is make so many changes from his strongest starting XI to run the risk of a demoralising defeat against a side who are desperate to take their first points since their match-day one victory over Astra gave them hope they could be in the mix for qualification.

The Hoops boss is conscious of the fact that making wholesale changes for the trip to Inverness earlier in the season backfired badly.

He was keeping his plans close to his chest when he said: "We will see what we are going to do.

"But it is important to win games away from home to get a good position in Europe, thinking about next year, as well.

"You also have to give a chance to the players you want to use to excel themselves.

"If you change the whole team, it is not fair on them."

Deila may have limited knowledge of the European competition scene, but he is learning fast.

And he understands fully the benefit a victory can have in terms of pushing up Celtic's co-efficient and ranking for future draws.

"We have that in mind," he confirmed. "And that's why we go into the game to win.

"It's going to be an important match, and we are not going to change the whole team.

"That is never going to happen."