Mikael Lustig’s hamstring injury is not as severe as was initially feared – and Ronny Deila has refused to rule the player out of Tuesday night’s second leg UEFA Champions League play-off against Malmo.

The Swede had a scan on Thursday to assess the extent of the damage and both the player and his manager were relieved that the news was relatively good.

The right-back will miss today’s lunchtime meeting at Tannadice against Dundee United but Deila is hanging on to the slim hope that he may be fit in time for the trip to Malmo.

“The hamstring injury is not as bad as we first thought,” said the Celtic manager. “He is not going to be available for tomorrow but may be okay for Tuesday, although that may be too early for him.

“But we’ve seen the scans and it’s not a big thing, which is very positive. Mikael has had a lot of injuries in the past, pulled muscles and that kind of thing so he feared the worst.

“We will see how he is tomorrow and Sunday before we decide whether or not he travels to Sweden with us.

“He’s a very good player so, hopefully, we can get him back as quickly as possible. He’s been playing consistently well for a while now so we’re hoping that this is a small setback and not a big one.

“We have no other injury worries.”

Meanwhile, Deila has also thanked the Hoops support for raising the Parkhead roof on Wednesday night – and has revealed the atmosphere inside the stadium has whet his appetite for more of the same.

There are just 90 minutes between Celtic and a place in the Champions League group stages and Deila is desperate to complete the task.

“The first 25 minutes was fantastic football,” he said. “I have to thank the fans. The atmosphere was unbelievable on Wednesday.

“We showed that we really want to do this and offensively we had some good football. This is just giving us more energy. We have to have more nights like that. We are so close now.

“There is one game left to get into the Champions League. We just have to prepare as good as possible now and do everything we can to have the most energy and motivation into the game.”

However, while he is mindful that Celtic’s soft centre is something that needs consideration he is still of the opinion that defensively the Parkhead side will cope with what Malmo throw at them.

“Against Kilmarnock I think we were very sloppy and open,” he said. “I didn’t like that. When you see the game against Malmo, they didn’t have many goal chances, they were very effective when they had the chance.

“We have been very, very strong defensively at corner kicks. I can’t remember the last time we conceded a goal at corner kicks. Last year I think we had 25-2 or something. We are very strong in set plays. Of course, I was disappointed that we conceded in the way that we did. That is something we have to learn from and do better from.”