Ronny Deila has insisted that Celtic will not enter into a war of words with Malmo.

The Swedish players were critical of the Parkhead side in the aftermath of Wednesday night’s meeting, with goalkeeper Johan Willand labelling the Celtic players “pigs” and “children”, while Malmo boss Age Hareide also questioned the fitness of Deila’s side, claiming he didn’t believe they had the legs to play 90 minutes.

Deila, though, laughed off the remarks and refused to be drawn into public mud-slinging.

“For me, that’s funny,” said the Norwegian, who has had the better of his countryman six times out the seven they have come up against one another. “As I remember, we won 3-2 on Wednesday. “That is the first thing we didn’t lose 3-0 or 4-0.

“We won the game and I’ve seen Mr Hareide very high up and very low down in Norway many times. He’s a funny guy and he tries to play these games and that’s something you just have to leave.

“Hopefully, he won’t ruin his own brain: that’s the most important thing. You need to ask him what kind of tactic that is.

“We are a very fit team and we played some great football on Wednesday and we’re really looking forward to Tuesday – it’s going to be a big game.

“I’ve watched the game again and I didn’t see anything wrong. It was a fair game and remarks like that are just too low-level to comment on. It’s not the Celtic way to do that – it’s up to them if they want to talk about us.

“We have to talk with our legs and that is what we have to do on Tuesday. There were a lot of things said in the media but at the end it is about doing the performance that we need to do on Tuesday and if they want to prepare with a lot of things in the media they can do that, but we are going to concentrate on what we are going to do here inside the club.”

And Deila doesn’t believe that Celtic need any more motivation for the second leg of the tie given the magnitude of what is at stake.

“I don’t think we need any extra comments to do that. I trust my players. We have all been through this so many times. “

Jokingly asked by a tabloid reporter what animal Celtic would be if they are not pigs, Deila guffawed: “Lions, we are lions.”