Leigh Griffiths will resume his Celtic career next week when the hoops head to Austria and Switzerland for three pre-season friendlies.
The striker hasn’t played in any sort of match since December but has been training at Lennoxtown since the end of March.
The loss of the striker was a major blow for the hoops last season putting the striking burden onto Odsonne Edouard with January loan signing Oli Burke struggling to make a contribution.
Lennon signed Griffiths from Wolves in January 2014 but the bulk of his 100 plus goals have been scored under Ronny Deila and Brendan Rodgers.
While signing central defenders and a right-back are obvious priorities a fully fit and functioning Griffiths would provide Lennon with a massive goals boost.
Should we consider him now to have fully rejoined the first-team? Yes. He’s still got a bit to do in terms of his conditioning, as they all do, but really pleased with what I’m seeing so far.
He’s doing very, very well. He’s worked very hard and has had a good week. He’s done all the training, double sessions, so we’re very pleased.
He’s been training constantly for the last two or three months working on his conditioning, so we’ve got no problem putting him in (to the team).
It’s great for us. We’ve got a proven goalscorer at club and international level that we’ve missed for a significant period of time. He’s missed it as well and he is in a good place at the minute.
It’s a credit to him that he’s worked really hard away from the limelight and knuckled down. It’s payback time for him because the club has been very good for him. He knows that and he knows what he’s got with me.
The matches in Austria and Switzerland will be followed by a trip to Bosnia to face Sarajevo in the first qualifying round of the Champions League on July 9. Domestically Celtic open up at home to St Johnstone on August 3 in their defence of the SPFL title.