Ronny Deila has got many things right as a Celtic manager. But the start to this 2015-16 season at Celtic Park has reminded me again of how mysteriously and woefully wrong Deila has been over the prolific Leigh Griffiths.
I’m not sure what it is about a hungry, instinctive goalscorer that any football manager could doubt or quibble over. In Deila’s case, following some windy rhetoric about fitness and attitude, his position towards Griffiths has been utterly baffling. Only now, it seems, after a full season in charge of Celtic, does the Norwegian coach appear to have faith in the striker.
Griffiths’ playing career so far has thrown up a better than goal-per-two-games ratio, which is the standard measure of all top strikers. Even at Wolves, from whom Celtic bought Griffiths in January 2014 for £1.5 million, he was the club’s top scorer at the time, having struck 12 in 26 games.
It couldn’t have surprised anyone that Griffiths scored a goal against Malmö last Wednesday night while some Celtic fans were still warming their seats. The 25 year old has been making a show of these early blows this season, striking in the opening minutes against Ross County, Kilmarnock, Caley Thistle and now Malmö. Having struck 16 goals in his last 20 domestic fixtures last season, Griffiths is currently on four in his last three games.
Griffiths, if he so desires, has the ability to match Henrik Larsson for sheer goalscoring prowess at Celtic. The evidence is there, on the pitch and in the scoring charts. This striker has goals pouring out of him, from every conceivable angle, and yet as recently as three weeks ago, at the start of the new campaign, Griffiths was vowing yet again to try to make it impossible for Deila to drop him.
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Why should someone so prodigious even have to plead his case in the first place? Griffiths was on fire in the closing four months of last season — but still felt uncertainty about his starting credentials under Deila. He came to Celtic following a blistering two-year stint with Hibs, in which he scored 39 goals in 78 appearances, including 28 in 42 games in season 2012-13. His career haul to date of 144 goals in 287 matches should mark Griffiths out as a striker to be feared wearing the Celtic shirt.
Oh, I get the rest of it — that there is far more to a modern day No 9 than the mere banging in of goals. On the European stage, especially, a more rounded game of “leading the attack” is of great importance. Yes, I understand all that. But the currency called goals is the greatest commodity in the game, and Griffiths has it aplenty. It seems abysmal that it has taken his Celtic manager all this time to finally appreciate what Griffiths can do.
Goodness knows what Deila will choose to do this Tuesday evening in Malmö, with Celtic holding their 3-2 first-leg lead in the Champions League play-off. Would anyone put it past Deila to actually drop Griffiths for Nadir Ciftci? On the basis that it will be suicidal for Celtic to try to sit and protect their lead, and that they will almost certainly need a goal, then Griffiths would seem a shoo-in starter. But, between Deila and his striker, we can presume nothing these days.
Asked recently about Griffiths’ need to convince him, Deila remarked: “He doesn’t need to … every time I pick him he scores.”
It doesn’t get much better for a coach, does it, a striker who keeps getting goals? But for Leigh Griffiths, this has been a long and arduous road of persuasion.
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Malmö is simply not a scary place
I have been in Malmö’s Swedbank Stadium. I was there in August, 2011, when the Swedes sent Ally McCoist’s Rangers out of the Champions League third qualifying round. It is a noisy, impressive arena, but some of the tosh I’ve heard and read recently about “intimidation” for Celtic this coming Tuesday evening has been laughable.
Footballers at this level who are put off — or scared — by noise should not be playing in the first place. Frankly, I can’t believe there are many about. And, if you want real intimidation, try going to Istanbul with Rangers or Celtic, and not sleepy Malmö.
I think Celtic will score on Tuesday night, and still have a decent chance of going through. But if they don’t, it will be nothing to do with a rude, noisy crowd.
Ignore the pundits — Tiger can burn bright again
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Last week, I asked Jay Townsend, the former pro golfer and now respected pundit, if he believed Tiger Woods was finished as a winner of major championships. “Oh, absolutely,” Townsend replied, citing a credible and well-reasoned list of factors which he believes make Woods, right, past it among the elite of golf.
Over the summer I’d heard many similar sentiments from American golf writers, who are not prone to hyperbole, and who have watched Woods through thick and thin these past 20 years. The consensus among them is that Woods, in terms of winning another major, is washed-up.
I remain intrigued by the whole subject, not least because, at the age of 39, Woods is still surprisingly young. Is there not time yet to mend your game, get your confidence back, and contend again among the big ones?
When Wood struck that 64 at the Wyndham Championship on Thursday, the subject came round once again. Is his game still there? Can he salvage something? Can Woods possibly thrill again in the way that he did in those prolific years between 1997 and 2008?
Closure does abruptly happen in golf. Nobody could have believed when Seve Ballesteros won the 1988 Open Championship at Lytham, his fifth major, that it would be his last at the age of just 31. But it was.
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Woods has missed the cut in his last three majors. His mist recent major title was the US Open in 2008. He is currently ranked No 286 in the world — an absolute blasphemy. So the least one can say is that some considerable rot has set in.
I await these years ahead watching Tiger Woods with heightened interest. His army of doubters may well be right. But Tiger, evidently, still has the element of surprise within him.