RONNY DEILA would be forgiven a quick trip through duty free this afternoon as Celtic face a six-hour flight to Azerbaijan.

With the third round of their Uefa Champions League qualifier precariously poised at the half-way stage, Deila may feel that self-medicating on the sidelines may get him through what is bound to be a sweat of a 90 minutes.

And not only because of the 30-degree temperatures that Celtic will take to the pitch in on Wednesday evening.

On last week’s evidence there is very little between Celtic and Qarabag. With so much at stake and both teams vying for a spot in the play-offs for the group stages of the Uefa Champions League, it will be a tense and nervous evening for the club.

While Deila has consistently spoken of his belief that the team have improved under his tutelage over the last 12 months, this is the time when the proof of those assertions is tested. It is one thing to brush away Ross County and get off with sloppy passes but it is quite another to prevail at this stage in Europe with the same frailties.

It may well work in Celtic’s favour that Qarabag must score, meaning that they will have to come at Celtic in a way they didn’t in Glasgow. A more open game may well suit the pace and width in Deila’s side, although defensively Celtic will still need to smarten up since against Ross County there were alarming moments of vulnerability exposed.

In that respect, it can be the middle of the park that proves to be the key area on Wednesday night.

Nir Bitton sat out of Saturday’s game against Ross County but is expected to return in Baku.

The midfielder is quickly establish himself as the calm centre in the heart of the Celtic side, unruffled and composed when the pressure is on.

Scott Brown is one of five players in the Celtic squad who have experience of playing in the Champions League with Celtic but while he was industrious and typically energetic in the opening leg of this tie, his distribution was consistently off the boil.

Charlie Mulgrew remains a question mark for Deila although if fit it is expected that he will retain left-back duties, while Mikael Lustig will sit on the right.

Such is Lustig’s history that Deila does not want to play him more than once a week for fear of another injury flare-up.

One of the positives of Saturday would have been the contribution of Kris Commons.

The versatile attacker has been out of action since a domestic accident moving a wardrobe left him nursing a broken toe. One of the experienced and vocal characters within the Celtic dressing room, Commons’ influence is as obvious off the pitch as it is on it.

It was he who whizzed in the corner for Dedryck Boyata to head home last Wednesday night and while Deila does not think the player has had sufficient game time to start in Baku, he is a player who can genuinely be called upon to step off the bench and make a difference.

“Kris came on in the last game and made a difference,” said the Celtic boss. “I think it’s too early for him to start but we know for sure he can be on the bench and affect the game.”

But having watched the legendary John Clark, current club kitman and Lisbon Lion, unfurl the league Championship flag and get the routine of weekend winning underway, Deila has accepted that there are still questions to be asked of Celtic at times.

That they never quite looked like rescinding a lead they had established in the opening half when Leigh Griffiths and Stefan Johansen had put them out of reach but there was a haphazardness about Deila’s side, in the last half hour particularly, that will be penalised by better teams.

“Always you want to play better and today I felt for 60-65 minutes it was an okay performance. But the last 30 it was sloppy and messy,” acknowledged the Hoops boss.“We were not together as a team and we lost the ball all over the pitch which was a little bit disappointing.

“But, also it’s two and a half days since we played the last game and it was a big match with a lot of intensity. You can see also that some of the players got a little bit tired. There were going to be a lot of changes.”

An energised Ross County boasting an almost entirely new squad given the players they have signed this summer were denied three times by Craig Gordon, a player who could have considered himself somewhat fortunate that his clash with Jackson Irvine resulted in a yellow rather than a red card.

The Hoops keeper, who has signed a contract extension that will keep him at the club until 2018, has been an impressive signing for the club but his rashness to bolt from his line and impede the former Celtic kid – even if he seemed to then try to draw himself back – was a decision that could well have seen him sent off.

That Virgil van Dijk was still behind him is something of an irrelevance; Irvine was still in control of the ball and was denied a clear goal-scoring opportunity.

Gordon, though, was put under pressure by Dedryck Boyata who had passed the ball directly to the feet of Ian McShane just inside his own half. It is instances such as these that Celtic can ill afford when they play in the heat of Qarabag this Wednesday night.

Griffiths is expected to recover from the calf injury he sustained while Nadir Ciftci will return to the squad following his suspension on Saturday.

It remains to be seen who is given the nod to spearhead a route into the Champions League play-offs.