Send for Griffiths!
McGregor wants Leigh to earn his place with Scots
CALLUM McGREGOR has challenged Celtic team-mate Leigh Griffiths to earn himself a shot at firing Scotland to the Euro 2020 finals.
Devoid of a proven goalscorer, the national team struggled to a 0-0 draw against Israel on Thursday before winning through to the play-off final on penalty kicks.
A winner-takes-all contest in
Serbia on November 12 now awaits and McGregor hopes
Griffiths can use the next month to prove to national coach Steve Clarke that he is worthy of a recall.
Griffiths hasn’t played for his country in more than two years but climbed off the bench to head the stoppage-time goal that broke the deadlock for his club in last weekend’s win at
St Johnstone.
‘It’s down to Leigh first and foremost, to get himself playing games,’ said McGregor, a scorer in the midweek shoot-out victory.
‘We know from what happened last weekend that if he gets a chance, he is going to score.
‘That’s the kind of quality he has and the national team would benefit from that too. It’s a
challenge for him. He knows himself that he has to get out on the pitch and play games.
‘Scotland would then be looking at him to come in and help the group.’
Having scored regularly following last season’s winter shutdown, Griffiths was in line for a Scotland recall back in March. Coronavirus, however, forced football into shutdown and saw the Israel game postponed just days before Clarke was due to name his squad.
Lockdown was not kind to the 30-year-old. Banished from Celtic’s pre-season trip to France after failing to maintain his fitness, he has slowly worked his way back into Neil Lennon’s plans and made his first appearance of the campaign at McDiarmid Park.
‘Leigh was firing, fit and well and scoring goals when the Israel game should have been played back in March,’ added McGregor. ‘It’s just a question now of whether he can get himself on the pitch often enough.
‘He is working hard every day and those are the demands we put on ourselves as footballer, to be fit an available for selection.
‘It’s down to him, down to us, to get him as fit as can be. Because his quality is undoubted.’
Griffiths took time to grow into his international career but broke his duck in spectacular fashion by scoring two stunning free-kicks in a World Cup qualifier against England in June 2017.
And with four goals in 19 caps, his Scotland haul is more than the combined tally of the four strikers named in Clarke’s original squad for the current triple-header.
McGregor, expected to start in this evening’s Nations League match against Slovakia, knows the team would benefit from Griffiths’ match-winning qualities.
‘We have a lot of good strikers in the squad,’ he noted. ‘The challenge for Leigh is to get fit, because if he does that, I don’t think anybody would doubt his quality.
‘No matter the level, if he gets that one chance then he will score.’
Although it won’t officially stand as a full international goal, McGregor insists he is happy to count the penalty that helped sink Israel at Hampden in midweek.
After watching goalkeeper David Marshall keep out Eran Zahavi, the midfielder stepped forward to confidently knock home the second of Scotland’s five converted kicks.
‘It counts until I get one!’ he smiled. ‘I knew where I was going to put it.
‘It’s all well and good hitting them well in training, but you have to have the nerve during the game.
‘I think everybody was on edge but the five of us managed to score our pens, so we must have been pretty confident.’
With the Serbia game presenting a one-off chance to qualify for the country’s first major finals since the France ’98 World Cup, the two Nations League games against the Slovaks and Czech Republic seem comparatively meaningless.
Yet as part of a squad that has been building momentum and remains unbeaten since losing 4-0 to Russia a year and a day ago, McGregor does not want to see momentum lost.
‘That’s what we’re trying to build,’ he added. ‘It takes time but once you get a good result, you try to get another then three and so on.
‘The Nations League has been great for Scotland. It has given us this platform to be one game away form a major tournament.
‘These are two matches that can help us to prepare for the massive game in Serbia.’
By the time the Serbia game roles around, it’s not just Griffiths who could be added to the group. Ryan Christie, Scott McKenna, Kieran Tierney, Stuart Armstrong, Steven Naismith and Liam Palmer all missed Thursday’s match for a variety of reasons and could be back in contention next month.
‘You mention some good names there but it’s important to give credit to the boys who came in on Thursday,’ said McGregor. ‘I thought they were absolutely first class, so it just shows you that there is a lot of strength and depth that people maybe don’t realise.
‘There was a lot of pressure on the squad to do the job. It had been building for months. To get that first bit of success collectively, you could see the relief and the joy in the camp.
‘The first part of the job is done and if we go there and manage to get a positive result that will be huge for the country.’
Serbia advanced to the final by defeating Norway courtesy of two goals from Sergej Milinkovic-Savic.
McGregor faced the midfielder twice last season as Celtic took on Lazio in the Europa League — and won on both occasions.
‘He was earmarked as one of the better players in that Lazio team,’ added McGregor. ‘Part of the game plan was to stop him, so that tells you how important he is.
‘He was important for Serbia with the goals on Thursday but they have a lot of quality in their squad.’