Malmo v Celtic: Scots eye group stage after war of words

Celtic will be out to silence Malmo and progress to the UEFA Champions League group stage following a war of words between the two sides.

The Scottish champions head into the second leg of the play-off round tie holding a 3-2 advantage from the first leg at Parkhead.

An injury-time second strike of the game from Jo Inge Berget gave Malmo another precious away goal and hope heading into Tuesday's reverse fixture in Sweden.

But the defeat appeared to leave a sour taste for the Scandinavians, with Malmo goalkeeper Johan Wiland blasting Celtic by saying they behaved like "pigs" and "children".

Unsurprisingly Celtic manager Ronny Deila has been quick to hit back and defend his players.

"Lions. We are lions. I've watched the game again and I didn't see anything wrong," Deila said.

"It was a fair game and remarks like that are just too low-level to comment on.

"It's not the Celtic way to do that - it's up to them if they want to talk about us. We will not go to that level.

"The motivation for this game is no problem. I don't think we need any extra comments to do that.

"We are a very fit team and we played some great football on Wednesday and we're really looking forward to Tuesday - it's going to be a big game.

"We have to talk with our legs. There were a lot of things said in the media but at the end it is about doing the performance we need to do on Tuesday and if they want to prepare with a lot of things in the media they can do that."

Malmo reached the group stage of last season's Champions League and, despite the loss in Glasgow, midfielder Magnus Wolff Eikrem is confident they can progress to the pools once again.

"We know how magical evenings we can have at Swedbank Stadion so I'm sure it will be a fantastic evening again," Eikrem told Malmo's official website.

"We came back [from 2-0 and 3-1 down] and got a good result for the home game so we have all the opportunities at home.

"We need to play as we did during parts of the second half. We need to be relaxed and it will work out because we have players that know how to score in this team."