Deila Delighted As Celtic Go Top

Photo by Jeff Holmes Celtic boss Ronny Deila spoke of increasing trust in is players after their commanding 4-0 win over Motherwell at Parkhead took them top of the Scottish Premiership. Goals by defender Virgil van Dijk and striker Leigh Griffiths gave the impressive home side a comfortable interval lead. Substitute Mikael Lustig, on for Adam Matthews at the start of the second-half for his first appearance since November after recovering from a hamstring injury, helped himself to a quick-fire double to seal the win. He was denied what would have been a remarkable hat-trick by the crossbar as Deila's side ran out easy winners to go one point above Aberdeen with a game in hand. The Norwegian believes his side are hitting form at right time of the season. He said: "I feel more comfortable now before games. "I feel more safe and trust the team more than I did before. "We are more together and understand what we expect of each other. "The training is also good quality now so if we keep what we have got it's going to be hard to beat us. "We want to be number one and now everything is in our hands. "If we win the rest of the games we are champions and that's the best position we can have, even though we know there are so many games left. "We just have to keep performing like today and winning games then we will see at the end of the season whether it's a race or not." Deila was pleased with the return of Lustig, saying: "I'm very impressed at how quickly he had adapted and come back. He is an important player for the team. "We have been very careful with him. We haven't pushed him - he needs to be 100 per cent before he plays." Griffiths has spent the season challenging Stefan Scepovic, John Guidetti and Anthony Stokes for a place in the side, not always successfully, but he insists he has no thoughts of leaving the club during the transfer window. He said: "The attacking options we've got here is great so the manager has a selection dilemma. "He knows that whoever he plays up front will be doing well so I'm glad I've got the jersey now and hopefully I'm doing enough to keep it. "It was never in my mind to leave. I had a chat with the manager and told him I didn't want to go anywhere. "I know there was speculation in the papers but this is the club for me and I don't want to go anywhere else. I love playing here, I love everything about the place. "What I want to be doing week-in, week-out is scoring goals for this club. "The good thing is that the manager also made it clear that he wants me to be here. "That's what I wanted to hear so I go out every day in training to work on everything I can so that, come Saturday, I'm scoring goals for the club." Motherwell remain third bottom but St Mirren closed the gap to two points with a draw against Dundee United, with Ross County still holding up the table. Manager Ian Baraclough knows performances have to be better if they are to avoid the drop, starting with the weekend's game against the Tannadice side. He said: "We have to put it right the next game. "You can't keep relying on others not picking up points, you have to pick up points yourself. "No-one is kidding ourselves, we are part of that group of three who are fighting for their lives."