RONNY Deila last night accused Anthony Stokes of not being a team player after he Tweeted his unhappiness about being left out of the Celtic squad before kick-off in the Inverness Caledonian Thistle match.
Stokes, the Republic of Ireland internationalist who last played for the Scottish champions back in August, later apologised for his outburst on the social networking website.
However, Deila, whose side won 3-1 to move seven points clear at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership, was unhappy with the posts and told the player he needs to work harder in training to feature in his side.
“It is disrespectful to the other boys,” he said. “Every week we travel with 20 players. The manager puts out 11, seven on the bench and there are always two left out.
“If that’s harder for him than someone else, then for me that’s not a team player. It is not the best way to behave for your team mates.”
Asked is Stokes would be disciplined by Celtic, Deila replied: “Life is not about punishment. It’s about reacting to your values. I will talk to him about it.
“What’s important for Stokesy is that he has to show the work first before he speaks. If you do that, you always have a future. But so far, it’s been more talking than performances.
“Does he have a bad attitude? I wouldn’t say that. I will say that it’s about the team and you have to stand behind the team. I don’t think that was a good thing.”
John Hughes, the Inverness manager, felt his side performed well for long spells of the match, but had lacked ruthlessness up front.
“I felt for 60 minutes we were every bit as good as them and matched them,” said Hughes. “They knew there would be a little bit of fatigue in there and we had to be on the front foot.
“We gave them a goal of a start, got ourselves back in the game, then I felt for 60 minutes we were well in the game.
“We played some real good football, but needed to be a wee bit more cutting in the final third. I’m really disappointed with the second goal we conceded.”
“I think everybody could see we are a good football side, we just need to get back to winning ways. There were positives, (Ross) Draper is back, (Gary) Warren is back. We have a goalscorer in Miles (Storey).”
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