Celtic manager Ronny Deila believes his side's 3-1 win over Dundee United on Saturday was the perfect preparation for their crucial Champions League clash with Malmo.

The Scottish champions travel to Sweden on Tuesday with a slim 3-2 advantage from the first leg at Celtic Park last week.

Qualification for the group stages of the Champions League is a top priority for Deila after watching his side exit the competition at this stage last season.

The Celtic manager made nine changes for the trip to Tannadice and Deila was doubly delighted to see his fringe players perform well while also allowing a host of first team stars a rest ahead of the Malmo game.

"I'm very satisfied. It was a tough game, mentally, after Wednesday. I made a lot of changes but we know we have a strong squad," the Celtic boss said.

"I hoped for the answers that we got today; that when we play the whole squad we can still win games.

"Winning gives you energy, motivation and confidence going into the next games and that is what we want to continue doing.

"It leaves us in a perfect situation. We took some risks but we made it and now we have the best preparation we can have into the game."

Only Emilio Izaguirre and Leigh Griffiths survived from Wednesday's first leg against Malmo and the pair combined to hand Celtic a 17th minute lead as Scotland striker Griffiths scored for the fourth consecutive match.

Mark Durnan's own goal doubled Celtic's advantage in the 44th minute but United immediately responded through Chris Erskine's first half stoppage time penalty.

Substitute Callum McGregor restored Celtic's two-goal advantage in the 74th minute as the Glasgow giants' unbeaten start to the season continued.

Despite missing a host of opportunities to add to their advantage in the match, the Celtic manager was happy with his side's performance and says they are going in the right direction.

"The first half was very good and we should have scored more goals -- that's the biggest issue," Deila said.

"We work on that all the time but there are some games that we are very effective as well. Against Malmo we scored two out of our first two chances. We work on our finishing in training every time as it's an important part of the game.

"We scored three goals which is a positive thing and we scored more goals here than we did last year so I think we are going in the right direction.

"We got a little bit stressed and we were stupid to concede a goal at the end of the first half. But in the end you can see there is a lot of talent in this squad.

"If you saw the game then it was obvious there was one team better than the other."