McGarvey tips Griffiths to be top man again
Scot backed to shine when Edouard ‘leaves in summer’
FORMER Celtic and Liverpool forward Frank McGarvey has urged Leigh Griffiths to sustain his recent form and stake his claim as first-choice striker at Parkhead.
With Odsonne Edouard expected to leave Celtic this summer, McGarvey believes that much of Griffiths’ fate lies in his own hands when it comes to determining his role at the club in the future.
The Scotland internationalist’s path looked uncertain at the turn of the year but his return following the winter break before the coronavirus lockdown put the shackles on his renaissance suggested a creeping return to former levels.
Eight goals came for Griffiths between the end of January and mid-March, form that was his most consistent since the season in which he netted 40 goals under Ronny Deila. The 29-yearold started more games – 11 in seven weeks – to suggest that for the first time since the Norwegian’s spell that he was shaping up to take on a more pivotal role in Celtic’s forward line.
“I think he has had a lot of time to think,” said McGarvey. “I think now the onus is on Leigh to go and give a wee bit of payback. If he goes back to training in the right frame of mind with the thought in his head that he is hitting the ground running then he has the chance to pick up where he has left off. But it is up to him to do the right things.”
Like Griffiths, McGarvey can congratulate himself on being part of the elite group of players who have netted over 100 goals for Celtic. But the similarities do not end there, with both men also coping with more personal issues running concurrently with their playing careers.
A forthright speaker, McGarvey might have had a role in punditry given his opinionated views but opted to pick up the joinery tools when football finished. He appreciates that financial concerns will have been a sobering catalyst for Griffiths to get himself back to the kind of form of which he is capable.
“He has a natural gift that
has helped him and he has had other issues that have maybe held him back but he has had a lot of help,” said the 64-year-old. “It is up to him now if he can continue where he has left off.
“Footballers care about money, of course they do. Where else do you go and earn the kind of salary that Griffiths is getting now at Celtic anywhere else? That is important.
“I think now it is up to him where he goes. He is in a small band of players who have scored more than 100 goals for Celtic so he has already shown what he can do. And those two free-kicks that he scored against England in a game at the very top level of football are iconic goals now. He has a gift and at just 29 he is still in the prime years of his career. If he does things properly in terms of training and eating and recovering then he has the ability to play for at least another three or four years at the top level.
A big fan of Edouard – “he reminds me of Charlie Nicholas” – McGarvey subscribes to the theory that Frenchman will leave this summer, although the financials in the wake of the coronavirus crisis may limit the sums on offer.
“I do think that someone will come in this summer and put £20million on the table for him,” said McGarvey. “You can’t blame Celtic for taking it, especially in the current climate. I’ll be sorry to see him go because I think he is an outstanding footballer. His temperament and his ability have been there for everyone to see.
“Deep within himself I suspect Leigh will always have known that he could come back and score goals. You are born with that. It is instinctive. He will then have taken confidence, though, from the goals going in and feeling his physical fitness improve and his conditioning return. I am sure he would have finished the season fairly strongly.
“But the thing with the really great strikers is that you are not scoring goals in pockets or doing it for a few months here and there but you are consistent in terms of doing it week after week and season after season. He should still have a lot of football in him and now it is about what he wants for himself.”
SCOTLAND centre Matt Scott will move from Edinburgh to Leicester Tigers next season and has vowed to help the fallen giants recapture their place as a powerhouse of the club game in England and Europe.
The 29-year-old has been capped 39 times by Scotland but has struggled with injury in recent years meaning that his last international appearance was against Australia in the summer of 2017. However, after building up a head of steam during the first half of the campaign, he was called back into Gregor Townsend’s training squad for the Six Nations.
Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill is understood to have been keen to retain Scott’s services, but with the capital club fairly well stocked in the middle of the park – Mark Bennett, Chris Dean, James Johnstone, George Taylor and Jordan Venter now – it appears they could not fit him in under budget.
“I am absolutely delighted to be joining Tigers. It is one of the biggest club’s in Europe and an institution of English rugby,” he said. “It’s a team I watched growing up, winning a lot, and if someone told me as a teenager that I would play for Tigers, I wouldn’t have believed them.”
“I think looking at the quality of the team and the guys who have committed to staying and those who are arriving next season was a big draw for me.”
The former Scotland age-grade cap came to prominence playing stand-off for Currie [now Currie
Chieftains] in the Scottish Premiership, before signing for Edinburgh in the summer of 2011. He made an almost immediate impact playing in the centre for the capital club and earned a Scotland call-up during the subsequent Six Nations, debuting off the bench against Ireland during that championship. He was a regular in the Scotland side for the next four years.