Chris Sutton has delivered a stinging attack on Leigh Griffiths, claiming that the striker is now fighting for his career.
After last Thursday’s friendly match against Nice Neil Lennon delivered a powerful criticism on the striker, calling out almost every aspect of his approach and attitude while highlighting his lack of fitness and dubious use of Social Media.
Griffiths trained at Lennoxtown as Celtic stepped up their preparations for the new season with three matches in France. Once again there is a major question mark over his future at Celtic even though, in football, managers tend to have special tolerance levels for the men that can put the ball in the net.
Sutton remains close to Neil Lennon and will understand the mood and feelings of his former team-mate.
Being without any first team player will have an impact on the team but as Sutton points out in the Daily Record Podcast Griffiths’ return last season allowed Lennon to change the formation that Celtic played to devastating effect.
Where he stands right now is fighting for his career, at Celtic and maybe for his football career full stop.
I find the whole thing, and I know that Leigh’s had problems and we sympathise with that but this, through the four months of Lockdown has been an opportunity for Leigh to really get in ship-shape condition.
He has had massive issues with his fitness levels, came back, transformed Celtic’s season. That two up top, he linked well with Edouard, they were phenomenal. Great to see him back, he seemed happy.
While all the other players would have had programmes the same as Leigh during the period that they were off he should have used that opportunity to get himself into tip top condition. And he’s let the club down badly. He’s let his team-mates down, it’s pretty deplorable.
How valuable has Leigh Griffiths been to Celtic? Even last season when it looked at times that it wasn’t quite going to happen. More importantly was the change of system and his value to that particular system and it worked, it transformed Celtic’s season.
Now they’ve gone into pre-season games, I know that they played a back five against PSG but they can’t even work on that particular system because he’s not there.
That may work against Celtic in the early games, in the Champions League qualifiers which we know will be one game shoot-outs so you need your best players ready and it doesn’t look like Leigh is going to be ready.
He only has himself to blame, there are absolutely no excuses. There is no point posting things on social media ‘I’m going to get fit now. If I was a member of the current Celtic team I’d be having harsh words with him.
With what is at stake for Celtic this season they’ll feel let down. Do Celtic have a ready-made replacement for Leigh in the wings? Bayo, No. Klimala all be it he has bulked up a bit in pre-season and tried as hard they’re not as good as Leigh Griffiths.
So, therefore, Celtic are down to one striker at this moment in time. That’s all because, quite frankly Leigh Griffiths couldn’t be ar*** to go running when everybody else was.
