Chris Sutton has launched a verbal attack on Leigh Griffiths as he accused the Celtic forward of having “killed” Neil Lennon this season.
Griffiths let the club down after the return from lockdown as he came back to pre-season training out of shape. This led to him only getting his first minutes of the pre-season campaign in our last friendly against Hibernian, before he then picked up a calf knock.
His absence meant Celtic couldn’t start with a striker in our Champions League qualifying defeat to Ferencvaros, whilst he also wasn’t deemed fit enough to start in the 2-0 loss to Rangers on Saturday.
And it appears as though Sutton has had enough. Speaking in the Daily Record, the BT Sport pundit pointed the finger at the returning Griffiths.
“One player who I have to say doesn’t sit right by me, and I know he came back and it’s good to see him back, is Leigh Griffiths.
“Leigh Griffiths has killed Neil Lennon in many respects. That period when the season shut down for Covid where Leigh Griffiths let himself go and was out of shape, and then he was left out of the mini pre-season. A fit Leigh Griffiths would give Celtic a much better option when Odsonne Edouard is out.
“The fact he can only play a few minutes of games isn’t good enough. He’s a player who needs to have a good long hard look at himself and think had he actually conditioned himself better, had he actually looked after himself better, Celtic could be in a far better place.”
Now isn’t the time to be blaming Griffiths
You won’t find a single Celtic supporter who thinks Griffiths was right in coming back to pre-season training unfit. However, it’s not right to keep battering on about it.
You also have to remember that Griffiths came on against Rangers and made an impact. His run off the Ibrox backline led to our best chance of the second half. He also didn’t exactly look shattered come full-time. The option was there for Lennon to start him or give him the second half – the manager simply chose not to do it.
Sure, Griffiths had a part to play in Celtic not qualifying for the Champions League – although why we had no fit strikers is another question for the manager as opposed to Griff. Yet the former Hibs man has been available to play for the last three matches now, stretching back to the game at home to Hibernian on September 27th.
If he’s been available for just about a month now, how on earth can the manager justify not giving him more than 23 minutes against Rangers? The chances are if you started him on Saturday then Celtic would’ve created a lot more than they did.
So you can blame Griffiths for not being up to speed as much as you want, but Lennon has had more than enough time now to get minutes into his legs and work on him in training. Only he can answer why Griffiths apparently wasn’t fit to start when it was clear he could’ve played a lot longer than he did.
Sutton is right about a lot of things regarding Celtic, but picking on one of our only positive performers on Saturday seems overly-harsh.
In other words, AC Milan are reportedly set to miss two players for their trip to Celtic Park, and they’re big ones too.
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