NIR BITTON, the Celtic midfielder, yesterday launched a staunch defence of Ronnie Deila and insisted the players want to beat Molde on Thursday to make their manager proud of them.

The Israeli midfielder, who penned a five-year contract this week which takes him up to 2020, even let slip a naughty word when describing the 3-1 defeat in Norway two weeks ago which has made this upcoming Europa League match, the fourth fixture in the group stages, a match Celtic have to win.

Bitton insisted the players owed themselves a performance and result against the Norwegian champions, but made it clear that it was Deila who they really had to repay after what was a wretched performance which put their chances of qualification to the knock-out stages at severe risk.

It was the Celtic manager who copped much of the flak for the defeat, however, Bitton stressed that the responsibility lied solely with the players.

“Criticism is part of football," said Bitton. “Sometimes you get criticism, but I think we are together and united. The team, the players, the coaching staff, we are always together. We stand behind him (Deila).

‘The gaffer is not the reason we didn’t win in Molde. I think we played s***. The gaffer can do nothing about that. We played badly and if people want to blame someone for that it’s us – not him. We just need to be sure we make him proud now. We want him to succeed.

“We owe ourselves (a performance). We need to play for Celtic, to show everybody we deserve to be there and that we deserve to go through from the group. We are still in it. We just need to make as much as we can to win the game.”

A win against Molde is a must and would give Celtic a real chance of progression. They face Ajax at home and then Fenerbahce away in the remaining matches in Group A.

While Celtic have been wildly inconsistent in the competition, if they could finish in the top two then Bitton, and he’s not alone in thinking this, has a feeling the team could make an impact in the latter stages.

“If we go through from this group we can make an impact,” he said. “This is maybe the most difficult group in the Europa League; Fenerbahce, Ajax and Molde – top of the group.

“If we go through from this group we can do something. How far? I don’t know. We have three matches and we need to take as many points as we can. First of all we need to win on Thursday, and then we will see.”

Bitton actually came close to leaving Celtic a year ago when out the team and with seemingly no future at the club.

“I spoke to the gaffer and to my agent. Not a lot of people knew about it,” he revealed. “But as soon as I had a conversation with the gaffer he told me the reason why I didn’t play. He said what I needed to change and I told him I’m going to change, I’ll show him every day I want to change.

“I had three months from October to the January transfer window to show him that I deserved to play. I got my chance and I’m happy I did.

“He wanted me to change a lot of things but the most important thing was the tempo of the game, the pace of the game, to be quicker on the ball, reactions. All these kind of things you can change in your mentality and I’m just happy I had a conversation with him. I just want to succeed now.”