Wednesday 3 February 2016 23:56, UK
Celtic manager Ronny Deila is prepared to meet the title challenge of Aberdeen after the 2-1 defeat to the Dons at Pittodrie.
The Dons scored twice in six minutes through Jonny Hayes and Simon Church to set up their victory and move within three points of the league leaders, despite a late consolation from Leigh Griffiths.
Deila's biggest concern is not losing to Celtic's nearest challengers away from home, but the apparent lack of fight shown by his players after the break.
The pressure on the Norwegian has been incessant in recent months with questions from the media over his future.
When he picked up his Manager of the Month Award for January, he was again asked about his position, but after the defeat to Aberdeen Deila insisted he is prepared to fight on, and is hoping everyone around the club will pull together.
"I accept it's a bad situation but the situation is also that we're top of the league with three points," Deila said.
"Sometimes it might feel like relegation but I'm disappointed the same as everyone else but I also know we have a good chance here.
"We just have to keep calm, working and believe in the things we are doing. We've won a lot of games and have lost three in the league.
"We have many opportunities and Aberdeen will come to Celtic Park so it's going to be an important game.
"My message is that we have to stay together. The players need the fans' support and we'll give everything for them.
"Together we're going to do it. We are one club and everybody is working every day to get the best results and best performance.
"When the Celtic support is behind the team it's great. In the end they have their opinion and opportunity to say what they want.
"They supported us during the game and I really appreciate that."
Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes feels his team were worthy winners, controlling the majority of the match after they were second best in the opening 30 minutes.
McInnes said: "I thought Celtic started better, they showed good composure. It was a crackling atmosphere, frantic, too frantic for me in terms of their possession.
"For all that we seemed to work our way through the game and as soon as Jonny brought that bit of quality and scored the goal it put a whole different slant on the evening.
"From there on in we just got better and stronger and got the second goal quickly after it. It was quite comfortable after that.
"Although you're never totally comfortable because of the quality and the level of player Celtic have I did feel that the game was without real incident for the majority of the second half and that pleased me."
Asked if he believes Aberdeen can go on to win the Premiership title, McInnes attempted to put the pressure back on Celtic.
He said: "We set out to get a better points tally than we managed last year and I've said all along that even if we bettered that tally we'd still need Celtic to come back towards us.
"Celtic should win this league hands down, there is no doubt about that, with the vast difference in resources between them and everyone in the league.
"But it pleases me that we can at least put up some sort of fight. It's not just us, a few other teams are capable of beating them as well. But let's not kid ourselves - no one in here would bet against Celtic winning the league.
"But we'll keep trying to do our bit and see where it takes us. They are still favourites. They are three points ahead of us with a far better goal difference which is as good as another point.
"They have a level of player that is capable of winning things. The current Celtic team has a lot of talent and a lot of good players. But I also believe my team has got that too."
