Celtic boss Ronny Deila: Scottish pitches are terrible and creating fighters not footballers
Friday 3 April 2015 23:15, UK
Ronny Deila claimed poor pitches are hampering Scottish footballers' development after watching his Celtic side win at St Mirren.
Goals from James Forrest and Stefan Johansen secured a 2-0 victory that leaves Celtic eight points clear of second-placed Aberdeen and on course for a treble in Deila's first season.
But the Norwegian was upset by the state of the surface and suggested poor-quality pitches are producing "fighters" rather than footballers.
He said: "Pitches in Scotland are terrible. I just have to be honest. You try to get passing into the team and the ball is bouncing all the time. It is not even close to what you get in Europe.
"It is much easier for the other team to break down our play instead of trying to create something themselves.
"It is much better to play on artificial pitches than play on this, if they are watering them and they are the best quality, they are totally different and are closer to European pitches.
"Nothing is better than a good grass pitch but if it is going to be like this you are better to play on artificial, like at Kilmarnock.
"If we are going to develop good young players you need to have a good surface to train on and play on, if not you get what you are, fighters. If you want skills and technique you have to play on better surfaces.
"Surfaces in Norway are much better, 60 per cent are very good artificial and the grass pitches are better as well and we play in the summer - maybe that's the biggest change."
St Mirren are four points adrift at the bottom, but their manager Gary Teale saw enough in his side's performance to encourage his belief survival is possible.
He said: "Overall I thought the players were excellent and I can't really ask for much more in terms of effort. We just need to try and reproduce that level of performance between now and the end of the season."
Celtic's second goal was a penalty, awarded when Viktor Genev handled Forrest's shot, but that decision frustrated Teale, who said: "Was it ball to hand or hand to ball? If they're going to give some penalties for things like that then they need to give all of them in every single game. That's what really frustrates you."
