Celtic manager Ronny Deila has hailed East Kilbride for a hard-working performance which restricted his men to just a 2-0 victory in the Scottish Cup.

The Bhoys went ahead at the Excelsior Stadium when Leigh Griffiths helped the ball into the back of the net in the 21st minute, while the win was sealed in the 50th minute when Colin Kazim-Richards prodded home his first goal for the club from close range.




Celtic dominated against the Lowland League side, but it was a laboured performance and their attacking play was not helped by Deila choosing to play with two defensive midfielders in the shape of Scott Brown and Charlie Mulgrew.

After the match Deila was keen to pay tribute to East Kilbride, while he also admitted his side were not clinical enough, though noting the unfavourable pitch at the Excelsior Stadium in the process.
 


"We have to give credit to our opponents today. I think they worked really hard and tried to play football which was nice to see", the Celtic boss was quoted as saying by the BBC.

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"We won comfortably but we wanted to create more. It was a hard surface today and we weren't accurate enough.

"We want our strikers to score so two goals for them today is good. We want to win the Scottish Cup and now we're in the quarter finals."

Celtic's win eases some of the pressure on Deila, whose position as manager at Celtic is under scrutiny following a prolonged spell of unconvincing performances, both at home and in Europe.