Celtic manager Ronny Deila says the race for the Scottish Premiership is far from over after his side dropped points in a disappointing 1-1 draw with Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

The Hoops have an eight point lead at the top of the table as they chase a fourth successive league title, but this could be reduced to five if Aberdeen can defeat Kilmarnock on Sunday.

The Glasgow giants appeared to be out of sight in the title race after a 4-0 defeat of Aberdeen back at the beginning of March, but a defeat to St Johnstone and the draw with Inverness has handed a glimmer of hope back to the Dons.

Deila, who is hoping to lead his side to a historic treble in his first season in charge, is taking nothing for granted and dismissed talk that Celtic were uncatchable in the league race.

"It is very easy to think that when you win a lot of games in a row," the Celtic manager said.

"But there is so much preparation needed before every game to be ready and if you don't do that properly you get games like today.

"Nothing is done yet. We have to take one game at a time and be very prepared for every one of them.

"We know we have the quality to achieve what we want, but it's still very hard."

The match at the Caledonian Stadium was barely two minutes old when Leigh Griffiths gave Celtic the perfect start at the venue which was the scene for manager Deila's first domestic defeat back in August last year.

However, Inverness needed just over a minute to haul themselves level as Edward Ofere fired home after the ball bobbled about the Celtic box.

Despite dominating possession in the second half Celtic failed to find a way past a stubborn home defence.

The two sides will meet again next Sunday in their Scottish Cup semi-final clash and Hoops boss Deila says he expects a different performance from his side at Hampden.

"You see how they play. We're going to have a tough semi-final, but we know that we'll have a good chance," the Norwegian manager said.

"This is a tough place to come to. They are a good team and they showed why they are number three in the league. But we look at our performance and it was a step down compared to what we have done lately.

"Today we didn't create enough. In my opinion we looked a little bit tired.

"I don't think we were ready when we started. We were too late in the challenges and we were not quick enough on the ball so we couldn't create the chances we wanted."

Inverness manager John Hughes, who led his side to a 1-0 defeat of Celtic earlier in the season, said he wanted to try something different in next week's semi-final.

"We will rest up and we have another tactic we want to have a go against Celtic," the former Celtic player said.

"We will have a go at them and we have nothing to lose next week. As long as we go there and put on a right good show we will make the fans proud.

"I know if we do that and we're playing at the best of our ability then anything can happen."

Elsewhere, Dundee United won for the first time in 11 matches when they secured a 1-0 victory over Hamilton at Tannadice, St Johnstone booked their place in the top six with a 1-0 win over Dundee and Partick Thistle eased their relegation play-off fears with a 2-0 defeat of Motherwell.