RONNY DEILA last night refused to use the excuse offered up by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer that Celtic’s European woes are down to their lack of proper competition in Scotland.

The Parkhead club can still qualify in second place in Group A if they beat Ajax at home and then Fenerbahce away, despite being bottom after their deserved defeat by Molde, the fourth fixture of a poor campaign.

But the players in the 2-1 loss looked far from capable of getting to even that level, which will dismay the supporters brought up on their team at least competing in the Champions League, never mind Europe's second tier competition.

Molde manager Solskjaer insisted Celtic should stick with Deila because the reason his side were so much better over both games was that they are tested every week in the Norwegian league.

However, Deila was not interested in going down that road.

Speaking to the Evening Times, the Celtic manager said: “That is no excuse for us. Not at all. We have to be ready for that step-up.

“We have played some good games in Europe and in the league as well, but against Molde we did not come close to our best level. That is the disappointing thing.

“I don’t want to use what Ole said as an excuse. It is something we have to handle.”

But the former Manchester Unite hero Solskjaer was clear in his mind why Celtic have had so many problems in Europe over recent times.

He said: “It is hard when you win the league just by turning up every year. It’s natural they struggle to get up to the heights (compared to) when they had the Old Firm derbies. They used to be top, top games.

“Ronny is always under pressure at Celtic. That is the nature of the job. If I was them I would stick with Ronny. Why? Because I know him and his ideas on how to play football. I know he is a very good coach.”

Deila admitted it would be a task to get some confidence back into his players and indeed himself after such a bad night at Parkhead.

He said: “Of course, the players are feeling down, but every person, myself included, have to pick ourselves up again. We have an opportunity on Sunday. We will get together on Friday and we’ll go through things.

“How am I feeling? I am feeling disappointed, but also a determination that we will fight on and get the improvement we need.”

Celtic managers in general terms are judged on how they get on in Europe and while it is hardly Deila’s fault that there is no Rangers and no real title rival, it does put more pressure on him to get results on such a stage.

Celtic still have a chance, but if they do fail to get out of the group, which is likely, then it is the Norwegian who will take the brunt of the blame, fairly or not.

Deila said: “It’s a lot of things that I am judged on. I’ve said that many times before. It’s the results in Europe; I know that if we lose the league, that’s not good either.

“It’s about developing a team that can get into Champions League and get a green line through the whole system from youth, so we can get players like Kieran Tierney.

“Someone who played there with heart and he had an unbelievable performance. That was a positive thing on a dark day.

“I think we score a lot of goals, but we give away too easy goals. We have to break things down. The media has to see the results, but I have to see behind the result.

“We have scored goals in every game in this group, but we concede too easily and that is the main challenge we have. I’m not going to make excuses for that, it is something we have to handle and something we have to do better That’s how it is.

“I don’t think about my position. That’s for other people to write about. I’m going to work hard to turn this around and be ready for next year, as well as the final two games here as well.”

Celtic’s central defence of Tyler Blackett, who replaced Jozo Simunovic after five minutes after he went off with an ankle injury, and Dedryck Boyata were given a torrid time by Molde’s clever play all night.

The club must help the manager find a solution to these problems because unless they are sorted out then the team will continue to regress instead of going forward.

Deila said: “It was individual mistakes again. We need to have much more character when we are in that box. We have to win challenges one-on-one.

“We lost that game inside the two boxes. That is disappointing. It is a lot of individual mistakes and we lose challenges. Their second goal is just a long ball on the far post.

“We lose a challenge there and then it is coming in from the goal and we are too late in that situation as well. You can’t say anything else other than it is individual mistakes.”