RONNY DEILA believes Celtic have been crying out for a big, bold and occasionally bonkers personality such as new signing Colin Kazim-Richards.

And the Turkish international, who has had major fall-outs at almost every club he’s been at, is likely to be on the bench for tonight’s top-of-the-table clash with Aberdeen at Pittodrie.

This could be about to get interesting.

Kazim-Richards has many, many past discretions, the most recent being when he threatened to beat up a journalist who claimed the striker, who was born and raised in England, had an attitude problem.

As Deila yesterday told the written media: “You know why I brought him in - you saw the last story about him! I’ll maybe not be here, but he will!”

The 29-year-old is a gamble because his reputation overshadows what footballing pedigree he has. However, the Celtic manager made the point that his team could perhaps do with someone so different who could raise the spirits of those around him simply by being himself.

Deila said: “Yes, it’s true there are things he has done, but I have players now who have stories from their past. I talked a lot with him before we signed him.

“I trust what I saw and heard. I think all good players sometimes have a bit of a special personality. It just needs to be controlled in the right way.

“We talked about this when Nadir Ciftci came in as well. People said he was a hard man to deal with because of things he had done before. But he hasn’t had any issues at Celtic.

“What I like about Kazim is that he works hard on the pitch. He is very aggressive and very good at holding the ball up.

“But he has a personality and, to play for Celtic, you need a personality. You can talk about them eating properly, doing everything right off the pitch and in training, but they also need to be able to deal with playing at Celtic Park and in front of the Celtic fans.

“I think he has a personality which can help the youngsters, to say ‘Hey, come on, we are going out to win this game’. That’s also a role he had a year ago at Feyenoord.”

There is footage online which shows Kazim-Richards telling the world that he was no substitute – so he is not here to sit on the bench - and Deila at least hinted that he could tweak his formation to suit the new man and Leigh Griffiths.

A bigger problem might be to calm down an obvious excitable character in the goldfish bowl which is the wonderful world of Glaswegian football.

Deila said: “If everyone was quiet, then you would lose games and you wouldn’t have a job. You need personalities. I am a personality as well. I have to handle myself, along with people around me, in different situations.

“It is about communication. It is about telling players what you expect and giving them clear commands. Then you are closer to them. I don’t have any problems with any players here at Celtic and I haven’t had any before.

“Of course, I don’t say I couldn't have done some things better, but I have a good communication with the players which is very important. I am looking forward to working with different kinds of people - that’s a very important part of the job.”

Judging any player before he kicks a ball is daft. To suggest many managers would not have touched Kazim-Richards with a barge pole is blindingly obvious.

But when you look back to Hampden on Sunday, and Deila touched on this yesterday, when Ross County went ahead, nobody really roared on the Celtic team until Scott Brown was introduced.

Celtic do need a different type of player because this squad at times comes over as too nice, too polite. Kazim-Richards is certainly not that.

Deila admitted: “Of course, I thought a lot about whether to sign him. I spoke to a lot of people who had him and played with him.

"I also talked to him myself when he came to Glasgow last Thursday. His wife was with him as well and we had a good talk.

“I did a lot of research on him. He is a fantastic boy and has a great personality with a lot of confidence. We know also that he has skills. In European games he played last year for Feyenoord he played very, very well. He is also used to being at clubs like this.

“When you have been with Fenerbahce, Galatasaray, Olympiakos and Feyenoord then you know how big clubs work.”

Deila conceded Efe Ambrose was at fault on Sunday when the defender’s red card and conceded penalty changed the League Cup semi-final with Ross County.

It is those moments of stupidity, bad decisions by individuals which more than anything have hurt Celtic. It happened the last time they went to Aberdeen. It cannot be allowed to happen again.

Deila said: “It’s now about making yourself ready, mentally and physically. Everyone also needs to understand what kind of task it’s going to be. It’s a big test for us, but we have so much to win.

“If we win this game it’s going to be very hard to catch us again. I’m looking forward to it, it’s a good test for us.

“On Sunday, everything was going well with a lot of positivity until that point (the Ambrose red card). We switched off for a little, Ross County were there and that’s the thing we need to work on. We cannot do that.

“It happened in Europe too and it happened again. This little bit of complacency has cost us. You need to be switched on for 90 minutes. That’s so important.”