LEIGH Griffiths had a few immediate thoughts when he heard that Odsonne Edouard had signed for Celtic on a permanent deal, but they couldn’t possibly be repeated in these pages. It would be fair to say though that he wasn’t exactly jumping for joy.

Footballers, and strikers in particular, have to be selfish to a degree. It is not that Griffiths wasn’t pleased for the club to get a player that he rates highly, or that he wasn’t happy to have the young Frenchman as a team-mate once more. He simply wants to play. And with Edouard and Moussa Dembele around, that challenge suddenly becomes a much harder one.

“What was my reaction when Odsonne signed? You couldn’t publish it,” Griffiths said. “Was it ‘Oh dear?’ Words to that effect. But no, that’s purely from a selfish perspective. You want to play as many games as you can. From a team point of view, it’s great that we can bring in that kind of quality.

“We have earned a lot of money from the last two Champions Leagues and the manager should be allowed to spend it.

“Odsonne has great potential. Like Moussa, he’s big, fast and strong. He can finish too. You want to have the best players to have the best chance of succeeding.

“It doesn’t get any easier for me. Moussa came in two years ago and then Odsonne last season. It gets more difficult. The manager keeps putting hurdles in my way and I need to step over them all the time. But I will do my best to stay in the starting line-up.”

Talks over a new contract for Griffiths are nearing completion, and that show of faith from his manager is enough to make the striker feel secure about his place at the club.

“We are still speaking behind the scenes,” he said. “We are not far away now and hopefully it will get done.

“When I speak to the manager, he always says I am a big part of his plans. As long as he is at Celtic, he wants me here. That’s good enough for me.

“It’s just about me working as hard as I can and showing him what I can do.”

Keeping all three of his strikers happy will be the conundrum for manager Brendan Rodgers to solve, but Griffiths doesn’t believe there is a

pecking order between the triumvirate, far less that he is at the bottom of it.

“People can say I’m third choice, but if you ask the manager, I don’t think he’d say that anyone is first, second or third choice,” he said. “He would say that he has three quality strikers who can all do different jobs. It’s about the opposition and what he wants to go tactically.

“My aim is to build up my fitness and stay injury free for the Champions League qualifiers. I need to apply myself and take a chance when I do get it.

“The manager has always said that everyone is going to get game-time. At times, it will be difficult sitting on the sidelines but when called upon, you need to take the chance. You need to be ready to make an impact. If you do that, you could be starting the next game.”

Competition for places, so the theory goes, brings out the best in players, and Griffiths will be pushing himself harder than ever in his training and preparation to grab a starting slot. But the 27-year-old’s psychological make-up is such that the more burden and expectation is placed on him as the main man, the better he seems to perform.

“Playing under Ronny [Deila], there was a lot of pressure to score after the first couple of months,” he said. “We weren’t playing well and everyone was looking for me to score.

“Now we have goals all over the park, and that burden has left me, which is nice. But I do quite like the pressure of being the main man and getting goals, whether it’s in the league or Champ-ions League.

“Whenever I do play, in whatever competition, I do seem to come to the fore when we are under pressure. This season will be no different.”

One thing that will be markedly different this season is the atmosphere at clashes between Celtic and Rangers, with the Ibrox club dramatically reducing the away allocation for Celtic supporters and Celtic responding in kind.

After being front and centre of some raucous scenes of celebration at the home of their great rivals in recent years, Griffiths is saddened to see the dynamic changing, but he is determined to silence the “wall of noise” he expects when he next plays at Ibrox.

“It will be different, but it will be the same for both clubs,” he said. “When Rangers come to Celtic Park, they will feel exactly the same as we do at Ibrox. There will be a wall of noise and our fans won’t be heard as much.

“Celtic fans going to Ibrox, there is normally a big massive support behind the goal. Now we only have the corner and we need to try to silence that home crowd.

“Will it drive us on? As players, our objective is to go out in every game and show we are the best team. We want to do that by playing a certain way and winning the game.

“If we do that, we will silence the home crowd – and you will be able to hear our fans.

“You always want the maximum crowd at Old Firm games and I don’t think there’s been trouble at the ground for a number of years.

“But now we will just have to adapt to it.”