John Kennedy confirms Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths won’t be rushed

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Celtic assistant manager John Kennedy confirmed the club’s stance on Leigh Griffiths’ recovery.

There was great news last week in the form of the Celtic striker returning to Lennoxtown. The work he’s currently doing, however, doesn’t appear to be with the first-team. Instead, the club are focusing on getting his conditioning and fitness up to par.

Griffiths has been out for over three months for personal reasons. Having him back has immediately opened up the question regarding how long he’ll take to get match-fit.

Neil Lennon was the first to say in the club’s official announcement that Griffiths will get as much time as he needs. Kennedy, meanwhile, hasn’t moved from the party line on that one. Speaking via Celtic’s official Twitter account, he confirmed that there’s still no time-scale on any return for the Scotland international.

Short term, long term, who knows?

The big elephant in the room is whether he’ll play between now and the end of the season, but there are a couple of factors to take into consideration here.

Firstly, none of us know just how fit Griffiths is after his sabbatical. Was he keeping himself fit in the gym or perhaps spending time dealing with other issues? This will be an important factor upon his return to training and how long he needs to build up his strength.

And then there’s the question of whether Lennon wants to rock the boat between now and the end of the season. Griffiths’ last appearance for Celtic came back in the 5-1 mauling of Kilmarnock in early December. It could take him a while to get that match-sharpness back once he does return to fitness.

With Odsonne Edouard in a rich vein of form at the moment, who knows how long that could go on for? The big Frenchman is closing is on 19 goals, and has netted in three of Lennon’s five games in charge. With big games coming up in the Scottish Cup and tough Premiership games post-split, Lennon may not want to just throw Griffiths in at the deep end.

The main thing, as always, is that Griff is back getting fit and working at Lennoxtown once more. It seems logical to just focus on getting him ready for next season, but who knows what will be the script with him? We’re all just delighted to have him back!