Pundit Stevie Mullen has recently been talking about Leigh Griffiths and his future at Celtic.
Mullen was a guest on the latest episode of the A Celtic State of Mind podcast and the panel discussed many issues involving the Parkhead-based club. Mullen was asked about Griffiths and his Celtic future and believes that the longer the Scotsman takes to return to the club’s first team, the tougher it will be for him to come back and compete for the Bhoys.
Griffiths, who is valued at £1.8m (according to Transfermarkt), has not yet played for Celtic in the 2020/21 season. He had turned up for the club’s pre-season training in an overweight condition and was left behind in Glasgow when the team flew to France for their pre-season friendlies as a result. Back in August, Neil Lennon had confirmed that the striker was going to take a couple of weeks to return from an injury.
Mullen didn’t sound too positive about Griffiths’ future at Parkhead. He said: “Sometimes, we’ve got to just cut our losses with guys. Leigh played two games in last August and didn’t reappear until January. He missed five months of last season, scored 11 goals in that time – three were in the last game against, I think it was St. Mirren.
Is Griffiths done at Celtic?
Yes
No
“But we missed Leigh for five months of the year last year. We’ve now started this season, he’s only played 30 minutes against Hibernian in one pre-season game and not been available. We all want what’s best for Leigh Griffiths. When does Leigh Griffiths decide what’s best for Celtic and his career? Because we can’t constantly always be relying on ‘he’s going to come back’, because the longer he’s out, the harder it is going to be to come back and compete to help Celtic in this crusade for 10 in a row.”
TIF Thoughts…
Griffiths had missed as many as 22 games due to injury last season and missed 11 games due to injury in the 2018/19 campaign. He also had injury problems in the 2017/18 campaign, when the Scotsman had missed 18 games (as per Transfermarkt).
It shows that he certainly has a worrying fitness record and his recent absence is potentially another sign of that. On the flip-side, though, he did manage to score seven goals since the turn of the year in the 2019/20 Premiership campaign and judging by that, he can still be a productive player for the Bhoys.
So perhaps, it is best for Celtic to wait for him to get fit and hope that he replicates his form from the previous season.