Hold on to Edouard /Griffiths issues plea
Leigh griffiths has urged Odsonne Edouard to stay at Celtic and further develop a strike partnership he believes is ready-made to deliver a record-breaking tenth consecutive league title for the Scottish champions, writes Stephen Halliday.
Edouard, Celtic’s leading scorer in the curtailed 201920 Premiership campaign with 22 league goals in 25 starts, has been linked with a summer move to Arsenal, while Israeli international Shon Weissman of Austrian club Wolfsberger is being touted as a potential replacement for Neil Lennon’s squad.
But Griffiths, whose own return to full fitness saw him form a prolific front pairing with Edouard after the winter break in January, is keen for the 22-yearold Frenchman to stick around for at least one more year. “I want him to be here, 100 per cent,” said Griffiths.
“I see rumours all the time that he is being linked with massive clubs, but don’t forget that we are a massive club as well, so we want him to stay.
“If he stays one more season and plays as well as he has done over the last 18 months, he’d be a big, big
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asset in us reaching the tenin-a-row.
“It’s up to the manager to decide what games we would play together and what formations he would like to use.
“But I think he knows that there’s an understanding there and it’s not as if it is something that is going to be chucked together. We know how we are going to play together.
“It’s an interesting one and I’m sure the fans are desperate to watch it in the stands or watch on the TV when we come back to see how we can continue the partnership.” Griffiths and Edouard started together in ten of Celtic’s 15 matches after the winter break, scoring 19 goals between them in that period as Lennon’s side opened up a commanding 13-point lead at the top of the table which ultimately saw them declared champions.
“Odsonne likes to come short and I like to go long, so we complement each other,” added Griffiths.
“When Brendan Rodgers came in as manager [in 2016], people forget that I was starting the games and started the season.
“I was scoring goals in the Champions League qualifiers and was playing well and I would have played against Rangers in the match where Moussa Dembele scored his hat-trick, had I not got injured just before it.
“That’s the way football works. Odsonne then comes into the club, I’ve sustained injuries and then I have my time out. Then the gaffer [Lennon, pictured] came back and he said to me after the Scottish Cup final last year that he wanted me to come back and be ready for pre-season because he wanted me to play a big part. “Then it was a bit stopstart again, but after January, I played well and me and Odsonne were on fire.
“It would have been interesting to see how the gaffer would have gone at Ibrox in the game that was due before the shutdown, if he’d have played one up or two up.
“We’ll never know, but we’ll see when the games come around again and see what the manager is thinking.”