Scott Brown: Players owe Ronny Deila big performance

Celtic Scott Brown and Ronny Deila

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Celtic captain Scott Brown believes the players owe manager Ronny Deila a big performance in Thursday’s crucial Europa League clash with Ajax at Celtic Park.

The Hoops chances of reaching the knockout stages have taken a huge blow following back to back defeats to Molde and they know that they will almost certainly have to win their two remaining group matches to stand any chance of progressing in the competition.

The Bhoys have not won any of their last nine games in Europe’s secondary tournament and they also go into the clash with the Dutch giants on the back of a disappointing 0-0 home draw with Kilmarnock on Saturday.

Skipper Brown knows his side must improve dramatically against the Amsterdam club and he believes the players owe their under pressure manager a strong performance.

He said: “Ajax is a huge game for us. It’s make or break. If we don’t win we don’t go through, simple as that and we’ll only have ourselves to blame, [the players] that are on the park.”

The Scotland international believes recent criticism of Deila is unfair and it is the players who should shoulder the responsibility for the team’s failure in Europe so far this season.

He continued: “Definitely, because he’s not on the park. We’re the ones on the park. We’re the ones that should take the blame. He can only tell us what to do and show us what to do in training. We have to perform on the park and we didn’t do that in the two games against Molde.”

The Celts are the slight favourites at 2.38 to secure a victory on Thursday, whilst Ajax are available at 2.88 and the draw is a 3.30 shout.

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