Scotland manager Steve Clarke has suggested that Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths won’t be in his starting eleven to face Serbia on Thursday night, speaking to Sky Sports.
The Bhoys forward has scored three in his last five matches since returning to the Celtic fold in October, earning him a call up to the national team camp for this week’s crucial play-off.
However, Clarke doesn’t think the in-form player is quite ready to feature from the start.
He told Sky Sports: “Leigh being Leigh, we all know his qualities in and around the 18-yard box.
“His recent finishes off the bench for Celtic have been top and hopefully he can bring something like that into the camp.
“But he hasn’t started many games for Celtic recently and it might be a big ask for him to start in a game of this magnitude.”
The news probably won’t come as much of a surprise to Griffiths, who has only started one match for Celtic this season, but he’ll be hoping to get some minutes in the encounter.
He hasn’t started a game for Scotland since 2018, against Belgium.
However, who’d bet against him coming off the bench to become a national hero, much in the same way he scored against St Johnstone, Aberdeen and Sparta Prague?
Scotland also have games away to Israel and Slovakia during this international break, so Griffiths could well find himself thrust into one of those encounters.
Any match action he gets right now is a positive to Celtic and Neil Lennon, as the manager looks for ways to keep the Bhoys attack performing on a consistent basis.
His progress with Scotland could be a rare case of international matches benefitting, rather than hindering, us.
In other news, FC Cincinnati have revealed they are in talks about the future of Celtic loanee Andrew Gutman.
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