Celtic manager Ronny Deila admitted he was proud of his players' reaction after they erased their European disappointment with a 5-0 thrashing of Dundee United.

Pressure had been mounting on the Hoops manager following his side's dismal 3-1 defeat away to Molde on Thursday that left Celtic bottom of their Europa League group and with a tough task to qualify for the knockout stage of the competition.

But the champions responded in emphatic fashion as they brushed past United in a one-sided affair on Sunday that extends their lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership to four points above Aberdeen ahead of their showdown in Glasgow next Saturday.

"I think it was a very good performance and I'm proud of the boys," Deila said.

"It's always tough after playing a Europa League match on Thursday but today we did everything right.

"We created a lot of chances, they hardly had a shot on target, we scored five goals, there were a lot of individually good performances and we were very compact, structured and disciplined for the whole game.

"Now we are four points ahead. Some weeks ago we had a lot of critics because we were five points behind and now we've suddenly turned it around in a month. That is something we should be proud of.

"It's hard at Celtic. When you are a successful club and you are winning trophies and cups then everybody wants you down except the Celtic fans.

"When you have done a lot of good things the demands get very, very high and that is how it is at clubs like this.

"You need character to do what we did today and they really showed it."

Leigh Griffiths gave Celtic a 23rd-minute lead before Dedryck Boyata headed home number two in the 40th minute.

Kris Commons, the centre of controversy following his angry display at being substituted in the Europa League defeat, buried a first half stoppage-time penalty before curling home a 54th-minute strike to put the midweek melodrama behind him.

Scott Brown helped round off the scoring in the 90th minute with an effort that took a deflection off United's Aaron Kuhl on its way past keeper Luis Zwick for an own goal.

The defeat leaves United firmly rooted to the bottom of the table, five points adrift of Partick Thistle.

Newly-appointed manager Mixu Paatelainen, who watched his side lose his first game in charge 1-0 to Hearts last week, candidly admitted the task to keep United up was bigger than he first thought.

"Today was such a poor performance, both offensively and defensively, that I realise that we have a huge task ahead of us," Paatelainen said in a scathing assessment of his players.

"After that I'm not surprised that Dundee United are bottom of the league at the moment because we don't do things right.

"We made some mistakes last week in my first game but all-in-all I thought we were OK.

"Today we were horrendous. It was a painful experience, there is no question about that

"We've got a long way to go. It's not something we will fix in the next two or three weeks. It's going to be a long, long autumn and winter for us."