Leigh Griffiths’ Celtic future is in the balance
The striker's future is in his own hands and he now needs to knuckledown
Following Celtic’s 1–1 draw with French outfit Nice in the first of their pre-season friendlies this summer, manager Neil Lennon fired a stark warning to striker Leigh Griffiths over his conduct.
Griffiths, who had spent a spell out of the game between December 2018 and July 2019 due to depression, was slammed for putting on weight during lockdown and blasted over his social media nonsense — letting his team mates down in the process.
Lennon said: “I’m not happy. I think that’s fairly obvious by the fact that we’ve left him behind.
“He’s come back out of condition and overweight. Any physical work we asked him to do he was coming out of saying he was injured. That’s going to be the case because he’s out of condition.
“It would have been absolutely pointless bringing him with us. We had an extensive week in Loughborough and he wouldn’t have been fit to play the games here.
“The ball is firmly in his court in terms of getting in the right condition.
“He needs to stop all the social media nonsense with all these slogans he puts out there.
“The boys here are all top professionals and I have a great staff who are all professional as well. They deserve better and he should know better.
“He needs to get his head down and get fit because that’s what we pay him for.”
Lennon added: “Did I have words with him? I did, yeah. I told him he wouldn’t be coming on the trip and that we were bitterly disappointed in how he’s come back.
“Since then I’m disappointed with his reaction on social media when we’ve asked him not to engage on it because it just becomes a downward spiral.
“We’ve done everything we possibly could. He’s had a long lay-off, he came back and he got back into the team. For me he was still a bit short fitness-wise but enough to get through the Scottish games.
“But if he wants to have a future here at the club it’s down to himself.
“We’re not prepared to do a lot more for him. Everything’s there for him. He’s let himself down and he’s let us down.
“You can never say never about chances but he’s got a lot to do to get back around it. It shouldn’t have come to this. He shouldn’t have been out of condition and shouldn’t have been heavier.”
Lennon’s words are stark, this is a man who has suffered his own fair share of mental health issues over the years after publicly admitting that he had suffered from depression and if anyone can get through to the Scotland striker it is him.
On his day, Griffiths is a talent and a player that can cause trouble for any defence in the country — but his off field troubles now seem to be overshadowing his football and he needs to get a grip of it before he sees his Celtic career disappear in front of him. Lennon’s patience with the striker is now wearing thin.
The ball is firmly in Griffiths’ court and he needs to make a decision on what is more important: Social media and noising up Rangers fans or his Celtic career?
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