Leigh Griffiths: Celtic proved doubters wrong, we are a match for anybody on our day

Despite that impressive run, Celtic more than held their own on Tuesday night, particularly in the second half as they returned to Glasgow with a 1-1 stalemate and a potentially invaluable away goal courtesy of a second-half Griffiths strike.

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Given Astana’s recent pedigree and the money invested in their squad, there were fears that a Parkhead side so early in their own season would struggle after a long and tiresome journey. Griffiths was happy to prove otherwise.

“Everybody said this team was in the Champions League last season and they would be too strong and good for us, but we showed that we can cope with that and on any given day we are a match for anybody,” he said.

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“We knew that they would have a lot of pressure and they scored from a set-piece, which was poor from our point of view, but we kept our head down and kept working hard and deserved our away goal.

“They didn’t create many clear-cut chances - they had a lot of corners, a lot of long throw-ins, but apart from that, Craig Gordon hasn’t had much to do. I think next week we'll definitely finish the game off.”

While Griffiths is already relishing the prospect of getting the job completed at Parkhead next week, Astana were still busy complaining about the Scotland international in the wake of Tuesday’s first leg.

The Kazakhstan outfit took to their official Twitter account to post a clip of the forward clashing with Igor Shitov. The Tweet translates to 'Griffiths punches Shitov in the match' and the footage shows the Hoops forward appearing to push the Belarus international defender to the ground inside the penalty box during the first leg of their Champions League third qualifying round at the Astana Arena.

On top of this, quotes from head coach Stanimir Stoilov claim Griffiths should have been red carded for the offence that Italian referee Paolo Mazzoleni saw as a booking.

“We have watched this moment with multi-angle,” he said, “and in this episode the game was clearly visible, the more the referee was close. In our opinion, this episode clearly deserved the removal of the Celtic player.”

After the game, Griffiths pleaded his innocence by saying: "There was a bit of handbags and one of their men went down. Both of us could have been booked to be honest.

"The ref could have let it go but I was the one who got booked. But I managed to silence the crowd a few minutes later so it worked out fine."

Griffiths, who grabbed his second goal of the season, has no doubt that Celtic will progress to the play-offs.

And the Scotland striker warned Astana that the Hoops will be looking to start the return game next week as positively as they had in the previous qualifier against Lincoln Red Imps, when they blew away the part-timers to recover the shock 1-0 first-leg defeat with a 3-0 win.

"We got that away goal and now we'll look to build on that next week," he added.

"We'll come out of the traps flying, like we did against Lincoln and hopefully we will get that early goal and try and kill their confidence.

"The big man [Junior Kabananga] was a handful up front for them but I have no doubts about our defence next week and the way we set up and I think next week we'll definitely finish the job off.”

He was also full of praise for team-mate Patrick Roberts who helped set him up for that crucial goal, and he told Celtic TV: ““Patrick did magnificent for the goal. Nine times out of 10 people just let that run out of play, but the wee man kept going, kept the ball in play and cut it back.”