RONNY Deila last night refused to blame referee Milorad Mazic for Celtic’s failure to reach the Champions League group stages after their painful 2-0 defeat to Malmo in the second leg of the play-off in Sweden.

The Scottish champions had a Nir Bitton goal disallowed by the match official in the first half of the match in the Swedbank Stadium shortly after being denied a blatant penalty for Kari Arnason handling the ball.

However, Deila, whose club will now go into the Europa League after missing out on a £20 million pay day, accepted full responsibility for the 4-3 aggregate defeat to Age Hareide's side.

The Norwegian admitted that his players, who had lead 3-2 after the first leg in Glasgow six days earlier, had looked "scared" and "stressed" during the encounter.

“We were not even close to the level we can be at,” he said. “We looked very uncomfortable on the ball. We didn’t want the ball and looked very frightened and scared. That’s very, very disappointing

“It was not like one player here or one player there, it was a team performance which was not at the level we can expect in these games. We lose and win together. This is my responsibility. This team was not up to the level we can be and I am part of that. I am the leader of this team.

“We knew if we were at our best, we had a very good chance to go through. But we were not even close to that kind of performance. Malmo deserved to go through.We failed as a team, I failed. We didn’t deal with the pressure of these games.”

He added: “The disallowed goal could have changed it. It is irritating, but in the end we didn’t reach it. I have to look at the overall performance and that wasn’t good enough today. I saw it afterwards, not so clear at time. It was a big mistake, it could have changed the game.

“We can talk about a hundred situations today, but the overall team performance is not good enough. We didn’t play defensively or offensively as a team. You couldn’t recognise any of the things we worked on before. Today we were not good enough. That’s my responsibility.

“I’m very disappointed. The only thing you can do is go on and learn from it, get stronger. When you have big games, you have to be at your best.”

Deila, who is now set to lose his centre half Virgil van Dijk with English Premier League club Southampton his most likely destination, admitted his side had failed to handle the pressure of the occasion in the intimidating arena.

He said: “The overall hype about Champions League is a big thing. Everyone wants is so badly. You get measured only on Champions League. That’s something you have to deal with,. It’s how it is at Celtic.

“We didn’t cope with it. We looked very stressed, it didn’t look like enjoyed playing football. The boys didn’t look like they wanted to fight and believe in what we were doing.

“We don’t have to sell him (Van Dijk). But you never know what is happening in football. He is under contract and is a very good player we want to keep.”