The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Davidson played season with injury
Dark Blues hero hopes Hampden double will prove doubters wrong
As he gears up for the new season, St Johnstone midfielder Murray Davidson has revealed that he played with an ankle injury from day one of the last league campaign, writes Eric Nicolson.
The former Livingston man had a tidy-up operation last month and is now only a week away from joining up with the rest of the squad for preseason training.
Davidson is already feeling the benefit of getting a problem sorted out that he had to deal with for the whole of 2016/17.
“The ankle feels good and even a week after the operation I was walking fine,” he said. “We’re in the final stages now and over the next couple of days I’ll be building it up slowly.
“Hopefully by the time next week comes I’ll pretty much be there.”
Griffiths added: “When I have had challenges, when they bring strikers in, I have shown time and time again that I will work my socks off and when I get chances I will score goals.
“I think I am only 15 goals off 100 goals for Celtic now. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get so close to that and hopefully next season I will break it.
“As I said, I don’t like people saying I am not good enough. A lot of people have said I wasn’t good enough for Scotland. Hopefully after the performance against England they think I am.
“My next step is the Champions League. If I can get a crack at that and get a good few games under my belt, maybe people will stop questioning me and start realising what a good player I am.”
He added: “I have got a lot of good people behind the scenes who back me and know what I can do.
“I have got a great manager behind me. He sees me day in and day out. That’s why he has stuck with me. He was frustrated when I was injured but I got a run of games towards the end of the season.
“Even then, people say I am going to be out the door. I’ll keep battering the doors down to show I am good enough to stay in the Celtic squad.”
Griffiths doesn’t have the physical attributes of most lone frontmen at the top of the game these days but he proved against Chris Smalling and Gary Cahill – both Premier league title-winners in England – that there is more than one way to lead the line.
“People want a big target man who will hold the ball in,” he said. “But I try to do the opposite by going in behind to stretch defences.
“That allows guys like Stuart (Armstrong), Brownie (Scott Brown) and James Morrison to get on the ball and drive us forward.
“Linking the game up is part of my game I still need to improve on, the gaffer says that, but I’m getting better at it. And next season that improvement will continue.”
Reflecting on the heartbreaking moment his second goal became a point-winning one for Scotland rather than a history-making one, Griffiths said: “Harry Kane is not the top goalscorer in the English Premier League for no reason. If you grant him a chance, he will put it in the net.
“I was on top of the world and then I felt like the whole world had swallowed me up when they scored their equaliser.
“Winning 2-1 with two-and-half minutes to go, they get a free-kick at the edge of the box that we have dealt with,” he added.
“Then we had a three-on-one attack, we chose the wrong option and they put a great ball in our box for Kane to score.
“It is probably one of the lowest moments I have felt in football when it should have been the highest.”
It will be a short summer for Griffiths and the rest of the Celtic boys in the Scotland squad, with Champions league qualifiers fast-approaching.
“It has been a long, hard season,” he said.
“It has been frustrating for me so I am delighted to end it on a high. I’ll get just over a week and a bit to enjoy my holidays then I will be back at it.
“It has been frustrating because of the injuries. The manager has stated before that I was rushing back too early, too eager to be involved. If I took an extra week I would have been fully fit again.
“From March onwards, when I came back after fracturing my back, I had a good run. I knew if I played well I would get chances to score goals.
“I’m looking forward to getting some time off and a bit of sun, then getting back in for pre-season training. Whether it is for Celtic or Scotland, if the chances come then I will try and put them away.”