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McLeish states Griffiths has not been ruled out of Israel start
ALEX McLEISH has extended the olive branch to Leigh Griffiths, admitting the Celtic striker could be his first-choice for the Nations League qualifier in Israel.
The Scotland boss upset the Parkhead forward by benching him for the recent home win over Albania, adding insult to injury by suggesting Steven Naismith of Hearts was his No 1 striker.
Declaring himself ‘surprised’ to be left out, Griffiths compared the Naismith admission to being ‘kicked in the teeth’.
The outcome of all this is a rare and welcome dilemma for a Scotland national boss. McLeish has two goalscoring strikers jousting to start in Israel and the friendly against Cristiano Ronaldo’s star-studded Portugal at Hampden three nights later.
Naismith has opened the campaign with nine goals in 12 games for table-topping Hearts, while Griffiths has hit back with three in his last four for Celtic.
‘I think that you’ve always got to prove yourself,’ shrugs McLeish. ‘I didn’t say to anybody after the last international: “You’ll definitely play the next game”.
‘You give yourself a chance and that’s all you can ask for.
‘What I saw in Leigh’s final sentence was “It is up to us to prove that we’re good enough”, and then he goes out and bangs in three goals.
‘That’s great. That’s the kind of positivity we’re looking for and the type of reaction. We want to see that kind of Scottish mentality coming to the fore.’
Two of the four strikers named by McLeish — Oli McBurnie and Johnny Russell — have yet to score an international goal.
Refusing to rule out playing Naismith and Griffiths in the forthcoming games, the Scotland manager welcomed an unfamiliar conundrum for recent managers of the national team.
‘Every time I’ve spoken to you guys, you’ve asked where the goals are going to come from,’ said McLeish.
‘I’m not saying that because they’re scoring for their clubs, they’re going to score hundreds for Scotland. I hope they do.
‘But certainly, it can’t be bad that McBurnie — before the last squad — was in goalscoring form and came back on Saturday and made a couple of goals. Naisy has been in great form, and Leigh has hit back with three goals.
‘Keep proving yourself. Leigh wasn’t getting chosen by Gordon (Strachan) for a while. Then, all of a sudden, he was in a rich vein of form for Celtic and Gordon called him up.
‘He got two great goals against England and one or two others, and something the Scottish public has been craving for years is a top striker, a top goalscorer.
‘Hopefully, we’ve got two or three on the cusp.
‘Oli has to get off the mark in the jersey, and then we’ll have real competition. I’ve never had a long conversation with Leigh from the point of view of trying to get into his mindset, but he knows where the net is.’
Far from pushing the Griffiths case for a Scotland starting place, Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers paid tribute to Naismith’s performance against Albania and warned his own player he had to work harder at aspects of his all-round game.
‘That was interesting,’ said McLeish of the Rodgers verdict. ‘If it’s constructive information, it’s something I’ll absorb. I see all the boys in training every day and you get a feel for some things.
‘You might think “Would he be better against him?” or “Would he be better in this position?”. He might be able to drop off deeper in the striking position.
‘There’s a lot of things we analyse and you choose the team for each game as it comes. I haven’t spoken to Leigh since the last game. I’ll see him when he comes here.
‘I tried to call him,’ joked McLeish, ‘but he blanked me...’
Tom Cairney’s slightly suspicious absence aside, McLeish will go with pretty much the same squad which turned in a high-tempo performance to beat Albania at home.
Around the same time, Israel were being cuffed 3-0 in Belfast, producing a mediocre display against Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland.
As McLeish can attest from a 1-0 World Cup qualifier win in 1981, however, the Israelis are a tougher nut to crack at home.
‘I went there way back in the day. Dalglish scored from a flick on by McLeish...’ he recalled.
‘Jock (Stein) went three at the back and Willie Miller came on at half-time because it was a shambles in the first half.
‘We were under the cosh from the Israeli team and, somehow, we got in at 0-0. The second half looked a bit better.
‘Willie was on and Kenny Burns moved into midfield. We got the corner and, fortunately, got away with a tricky one-nil.
‘It’s never easy to go away but we go with a bit of confidence from the Albania game. We want to be as positive as we can be away from home.
‘I’m not saying we open ourselves up but we want to still play at a tempo that we feel this group of players can give us.
‘I watched the game in Belfast. They looked as if they were a team in transition and they are a wee bit. But they are not the worst. (Moanes) Dabour and (Tomer) Hemed at Brighton looked a handful at times as well.
‘It wasn’t a terrible performance by them. There were some parts of it that they will look to try to improve upon, but we want to go away from home and be a big threat to anybody we play.
‘We hope we can do that with the speed and athleticism in the team.’