Ronny Deila has told Stefan Johansen to take a break in order to get back to playing at the level he was last season.

The Norwegian midfielder has been out of form for both club and country this season and there have been some suggestions that the player’s ego had been inflated because of the plaudits won last term when he was named SPFA Player of the Year.

Deila has insisted that it is simply a question of focus and he will rest Johansen for today’s meeting against Kilmarnock while the player is subsequently suspended for Thursday night’s Europa League visit of Ajax.

“When Stefan came to Stromsgodset he had been the best talent in Norway at 16. But he wasn’t even close to it for two years,” explained Deila. “It took him a couple of seasons of hard work to get in the team. Everything has gone well for him since then. He was the best player in Norway before he came here.

“He’s getting a hard time right now but he has to deal with that because he’s been praised so much in the past. It’s about getting back on track and doing the things he did to get him to this stage in the first place.

“It’s not about attitude, it’s about focus. There’s a lot of expectation when you get a lot of praise. You need to deal with that. It’s sometimes harder to deal with the good times because in bad times everyone comes together to give you a lift.

“During the good times it’s easy to become very individual. You think only of yourself and don’t see the whole picure. All young players go through fazes like this.

“When you get out of it you learn and become stronger so when you get into a similar situation you get out of it much quicker the next time. I talk a lot with Stefan. He has to find out for himself as well, but the staff will help him get there.

“We’ve got people who deal with the mental side all of the time. There’s nothing new there.

“When Stefan was fantastic last year, he wasn’t that fantastic. Now he’s not that bad. It’s somewhere in between. I watch the body language of all the players every day. Not just him, everyone. I see what’s going on and if I see something I tell them.”

And Deila insisted that the midfielder will rediscover his form, while also maintaining that there is not a problem with his ego getting out of hand.

“Stefan Johansen is very good with people,” he stressed. “ He doesn’t think he is bigger than anyone else, if that is the picture that’s being painted. He’s one of the most social guys in the group - he’s a leader. He has the respect of everyone. It’s not about ego.

“It’s about mindset. He’s been challenged in a different way because of the expectations. You could say he hasn’t been as good as last year but last seaosn everything was positive. He had loads of energy and every time he kicked the ball it went the right way.

“This year it’s been negative. The task is to build him up again and help him regain his confidence.”

Meanwhile, Deila remains optimistic that he can still fulfil his ambitions of getting Celtic into the UEFA Champions League.

The pressure on the manager from some of the support grew with the back-to-back defeats against Molde in the Europa League and that, on top of the failure to make it into the group stages of the UEFA Champions League, appeared to snap the patience of some supporters.

The financial figures spoken of at the club’s AGM yesterday – Celtic currently have the same wage bill as they did in 2003 when the club got to the UEFA Cup final despite bringing in £5m less in revenue while but clubs like Everton and Aston Villa in England have trebled their wage bills – underlined the economic difficulties in building a team capable of sustaining a challenge in Europe.

Deila, though, believes he can still achieve that with Celtic. “Wwe should still be capable of beating Malmo and Molde,” he said.

“We’re not talking about beating Real Madrid, it’s about beating the teams in leagues around us. That is the goal for next season.

“We still have a chance now in these last two games. We are not out yet. If we win our last two games we will be through and it would be an unbelievable turnaround. That’s what we are aiming to do.

“My dream is the say as on the first day. I want to play against a big team here, control the game and win. I want to have that feeling we had in the first 30 minutes against Malmo, when the whole stadium was rocking. The feeling was unbelievable and getting it again is the dream. It’s more than possible.”