Eighteen months ago Leigh Griffiths couldn’t have been further from Celtic’s first team plans- much like Nadir Ciftci at the turn of this year.
During the course of Celtic’s mid-winter break in Gran Canaria Griffiths emerged to force his way past golden boy John Guidetti and Stefan Scepovic and kill off rumours of another loan stint at Hibs.
The turnaround in Griffiths career was profound with a 40 goal haul last season delivering the Premiership title and helping him to sweep up the Player-of-the-Year awards.
With Scepovic, Carlton Cole, Anthony Stokes and Colin Kazim Richards off the payroll Brendan Rodgers is clearly in need of reinforcements.
If Ciftci can be rehabilitated into the striker Ronny Deila thought he was signing a year ago it would be an amazing transformation with the 24-year-old playing it by ear after scoring the opening goal of the campaign in the 2-2 draw with NK Celje last night.
“It’s good to be back and I’m very happy to work with a big manager like this again and hopefully be part of things at Celtic for the future,” Ciftci told Celtic TV.
“It’s been almost two weeks that we’ve been working and it’s been very good with the new manager. Everything’s new and it’s been very positive on the training ground and we worked hard in the game as well.
“It’s always good to get a goal but the most important thing is to get the fitness back, to do the right things that the manager asks on the pitch. To get a goal was great but we were 2-0 down at the time and it was a really good attitude from the boys to get back to 2-2.”
With Mousa Dembele available for Sunday’s match against Sturm Graz the striking competition has been stepped up- time will tell if Ciftci can follow Griffiths into the the hearts and affection of the Celtic support.