EX-CELT WARNS OVER HOOPS STAR’S FUTURE
LEIGH GRIFFITHS’ former agent Darren Jackson has warned top English clubs will now be looking at the forward after his two stunning free-kick goals for Scotland against England.
But if he is given assurances over gametime for next season from Brendan Rodgers, Jackson thinks there is nowhere Griffiths would rather be than Celtic Park.
Former Celtc Jackson has no doubt, though, that the Celtic striker would be a success if he should end up playing in the English Premier League. When asked if
his goalscoring heroics at Hampden will mean a heightened profile for Griffiths down south, Jackson said: “It does. Maybe people down south, even in the way commentators such as Gary Neville were speaking about him, may sit up and take notice.
“However, if the wee man is in the Celtic team, then I don’t think he wants to be anywhere else.
“He backs himself to be better than anyone. He doesn’t think he’s better than any other striker at the club, but he’ll back himself.
“He says: ‘If you’ll play me, I’ll score goals.’ That’s where he backs himself. He has never been arrogant or blasé, it’s just belief.
“He’s actually a quiet boy, but he does have a surge and a belief that he can score goals.
“I don’t see him on the pitch being cocky or speaking to defenders. He just has an inner belief he can score goals.
“He doesn’t strut about the pitch, sticking his chest out and saying: ‘Look at me, what a player.’
“I just think he scores goals and that’s all he wants to do in his head.
“I don’t think there will be any talk about Leigh leaving, although there may be about Moussa Dembele leaving.
“Brendan Rodgers knows the score. You need at least two or three good strikers, and down south it’s four.
“He’s got two exceptional ones there, and I think he’ll be desperate to keep them.
“If Leigh is playing, he doesn’t want to be any other place than Celtic. That depends on who goes and who comes in, but I don’t think he’s ever mentioned leaving.
“Even when he wasn’t in the team, he can maybe appreciate that when he was scoring all the goals the season before, there were other strikers champing at the bit to get a game.
“When Moussa was scoring a lot of goals last season he found himself out of the team, and he found that quite hard, but when he gets in Leigh does what it says on the tin.
“Leigh could score goals in any company. People talk about if he could go down south and score goals, but that’s what he does.”
Jackson says that any reputation Griffiths has had in the past for indiscipline is unfair. While he describes him as something of a lovable rogue, he says that these days, he is fully dedicated to being the best player he can be.
“I looked after him from Livingston to Dundee to Wolves and then on to Hibs… too long!” joked Jackson.
“I’m buzzing for him. He was great to look after. People take him a wrong way but he’s a loveable guy and he just lives to play football and score goals.
“I was at the Partick Thistle game when he came off and had that wee word with Brendan and I was laughing.
“I texted him afterwards – it’s just because he wants to score goals and he had to apologise afterwards. Rightly so, he knows that.
“That’s just him – he comes off and it’s just in his head that he wants to keep scoring goals.
He’s not arrogant and doesn’t go out to wind people up. He just thinks: ‘I need to score goals – that’s what I do in life. I score goals.’