Deila seeks answers to Celtic's poor performance at Kilmarnock

Celtic manager Ronny Deila will look for answers for their below-par performance at Kilmarnock after the elation of their late victory subsides.

Saturday looks likely to prove the crucial afternoon in the Premiership title race. With seconds before the 90 minutes were up, Celtic looked set to hand Aberdeen the chance to go top as they laboured at Rugby Park.

But Tom Rogic unleashed a stunning long-range strike to secure a 1-0 victory for the champions and they ended the day four points clear with a game in hand following Motherwell's second-half comeback against the Dons.

The significance of the late strike was evident in the celebrations among the Celtic players, fans and management team with Deila reintroducing the 'Ronny Roar' afterwards.

But the fact remains that Rogic's goal was spectacularly out of keeping with Celtic's general play. After a decent start, they struggled to break Kilmarnock down and their two best chances came from Erik Sviatchenko headers following corners.

Killie improved in possession and began to believe they could take all three points as the game progressed, until Rogic struck.

Deila speculated that his team's sluggish play was down to them failing to adapt to the artificial surface. They drew at Rugby Park earlier in the season, lost on a similar surface in the Europa League and recently drew at Hamilton.

The Norwegian said: "It was a very important moment but we will get answers from this as well. We need to lift the performance from this one.

"I think it was different things, but we were not comfortable on the ball. We used one or two touches all the time and everyone looked like they were insecure when they got it.

"If that was the surface, I don't think there should be any excuse. But it's a long while since we have played well on artificial. We have had some games, the Molde game and Hamilton and here the other time.

"When it goes so slow and when we ran it looked slow, we have to evaluate it and find some answers because we are going to play on artificial in the future as well."

Kilmarnock boss Lee Clark described the defeat as the most painful of his career but his side remained five points adrift in their quest to get out of the bottom two after Hamilton lost later in the day.

Clark, who has taken one point from his first five games in charge, said: "Our standard of performance since I came through the door has been high.

"We have played some tough games. We have played Hearts, Aberdeen and Celtic now and more than matched those three teams. We had a good and hard-earned draw against Dundee and let ourselves down against Ross County. But we have good consistency of performance.

"There have been lots of areas of improvement in the team. One area we have never had any improvement is in the luck stages. The saying in the game is it levels itself out but I'm not sure who came up with that saying."

Clark, who revealed Steven Smith would miss the rest of the season with a hip injury, added: "Hopefully the ones who go away on international duty come back unscathed because we have seven of the biggest club games of our life left.

"They are not just cup finals, they are Champions League finals. They are the biggest club games we can play.

"If we continue like that we will get enough points to stay in the league and then we will move the club forward."