LEIGH GRIFFITHS grabbed his first league goal of the new season on Saturday after copying Olivier Ntcham’s trick and hitting the back of the net after going on as a substitute. Celtic scored seven, it could have been double that score given the chances created, all curiously ignored by Sportscene last night incidentally.
Still who cares really? There are Goals Galore in this Celtic side – Neil Lennon’s Celtic side and incidentally well done to those Celtic Supporters over the weekend who posted on various sites and social media channels to admit that they got it wrong in opposing Neil Lennon’s appointment as Celtic manager.
As we said in our Match Report on Saturday evening, written in the bus park behind the Jock Stein Stand, one of the Bhoys came back onto the bus saying “Brendan? Brendan Who?”
Leigh spoke to the media after the game, covering the match on Saturday and the next game, away to Cluj in the Champions League. This is the same stage as Rodgers came a cropper last season against a poor AEK Athens side. Such is the confidence among the support at the moment, that few fear such an outcome this time around. And apparently the press have somewhat belatedly realised that Neil Lennon has ‘Champions League Savvy’ – they weren’t saying that earlier in the year were they?
No they were full of optimism that Celtic would regress with Rodgers gone. Neil Lennon was seen as a downgrade, Peter Lawwell will undoubtedly be paying him less, Rodgers remember was the guy who ‘let wags spiral’ yet to be fair to him he was also the guy who gave Lawwell a £100m turnover. He was counting around half of that sum before the ‘Celtic supporting’ Irishman arrived. Still, enough of that, back to talking about the weekend.
“We let other people talk and say what they have to say,” Griffiths said to the media, as reported by Scottish Sun.
“If people think we’re weaker when we are winning 7-0, how much better can we get? As players, we do our job on that pitch and you look at the performance against St Johnstone. It’s a joy to see us playing like that.
“We look strong. We were missing Christopher Jullien, Jozo Simunovic and Kieran Tierney on Saturday. You also have the attacking players who weren’t in the squad — Tom Rogic, Maryan Shved and Vakoun Bayo.
“There are a lot of players who will come back and make us even stronger. There are goals everywhere in the squad,” Leigh continued.
“The gaffer likes attacking football. Anyone watching the St Johnstone game will see that. He always demands we are on the front foot and he wants to make this place a fortress.
“Teams were coming here last season and putting 11 men behind the ball, and they were scraping points here and there. But this year, we will be even more on the front foot. Our forward players are unbelievable and we will get better moving forward.
“The team has more goals in it now. You could see that from the St Johnstone game. Ryan got three, Odsonne, Mikey and Olivier also got one and then you think of the players we have out.
“Tom is still working his way back and Bayo and Shved weren’t in the squad. It’s up to the gaffer how he uses us all — but that was a great start to the league season.”
Also on The Celtic Star…
Celtic Supporters Stories – The Billy McNeill Tribute Mass in Cork…see HERE.
Green Brigade’s Beautiful Sunday as SWPL Opener finishes Celtic 3 Rangers 1…see HERE.
‘When I heard Celtic wanted me I wanted to come here,’ Bolingoli…see HERE.
‘To Lisbon and back on a Fiver,’ Jerry Woods…see HERE.
