It’s not Griffiths v the world ... he’s his own worst enemy
LONG ago, longer than one would care to remember, there was a fair amount of high school mockery annually around exam time when one particular science teacher would loudly and dramatically comment on his ability to lead a horse to water but his failure to make it drink.
It was the cause of guffaws and snorts because, let’s be honest, teenagers know more than anyone else ever will. And who needs science anyway?
Perhaps we all morph into our biology teachers as we look in at life on the other side of adolescent angst but his words resonated this week as news emerged of just how much Leigh Griffiths has put himself out of the picture at Celtic these past few months.
Griffiths has scored 115 goals for the Parkhead side, but whether he will score another one now really comes down to what he does next.
The Celtic striker’s stats at the club might give credence to the old football theory that his brains are all in his boots. Griffiths is the first player of his generation to net more than a century of goals for the Parkhead side – John Hartson had been the last one to head into the club’s illustrious 100-squad – but the selfharming cycle of the player is a brutal watch.
Scotland manager Steve Clarke will have been every bit as frustrated as Neil Lennon this week as it emerged that Griffiths’ focus was more on his TikTok account than it was on his homework over lockdown.
As training targets weren’t posted back to the club or excuses were made with regards to the technology used to measure fitness work, Griffiths misjudged the mood of a manager who seems to have had his patience seriously tested.
It’s too early to say that Griffiths won’t play for the club again. But what was inescapable on Thursday evening after the Parkhead side had drawn with Nice was Lennon’s ire.
The time in England and in France has not diluted the Celtic manager’s sense of irritation that a player for whom he had rearranged his system in January and integrated into a threatening partnership with Odsonne Edouard has failed to show any kind of appreciation in return.
If there has been an immaturity in social media postings that lean towards the empty rhetoric of motivational quotes, it has been reflected in the choices made on the part of the Parkhead striker.
Griffiths will turn 30 next month. He has made a name for himself at Celtic and the devilment of his character has endeared him to a support, many of whom were lukewarm when he first arrived at the club.
He has given his country the most iconic moments of the last decade with his goals against England at Hampden. He has proven himself on the pitch at domestic and European level but has been repeatedly let down by decisions and choices off it.
A quiet word here and there has been given to Griffiths by every Celtic manager he has worked with. There has been encouragement and cajoling and there has been the other side of that coin too as exasperation has come to the fore.
But ultimately it comes down to what the player wants for himself.
The natural ability is unquestionably there. But as the clock starts to tick now in the final years of his playing career, can anyone really hammer home the message that a decade further down the line the regrets will be tenfold to what they are now if he allows a career to slip through his fingers? There will be no hauling himself up off the canvas, Rocky Balboa style, when football has called time on his days on a pitch.
And what will come then? That realisation cannot come from anywhere other than from within. The penny has to drop that the best person to help Griffiths is Griffiths himself.
There is a support network there – for now. But crucially he has to recognise that he is not up against the world and fighting forces who wish him to fail but rather he is fighting the forces within himself.
The call to leave him behind as the squad went on preseason speaks volumes. That his manager did not think him fit enough to play is a damning indictment of his conditioning.
Only one person can fix it.
AND ANOTHER THING
GETTING back to football has been a long time coming, but where the on-field stuff has been missing, political discord hasn’t.
There has been ample unrest to provide the soundtrack to a summer of contention but it took a fresh twist this week when both Rangers and Celtic, in action for the first time since March, both took a knee ahead of their games in France in the Veolia tournament.
Rangers have recently launched the ‘Everyone, Anyone’ PR campaign which has been widely applauded as a genuine attempt to appeal to all sections of the community but the club’s social media post which showed the Ibrox players kneeling before their game against Lyon kicked off prompted some bilious responses.
It must be pointed out that there were significant numbers keen to back the decision of the players and equally keen to make their point in terms of what the Black Lives Matter campaign actually represents as an ideology.
But as the club strive to make forward movements in terms of inclusivity, it is the voices within the support who are willing to challenge some of the more ingrained attitudes that will play the most important part in shaping the Rangers of the future.
Clarke will have been every bit as frustrated