LEIGH Griffiths will close his eyes and think of England before every free-kick he steps up to take against Astana tonight. The Celtic striker, who has declared himself fit to lead the line despite recent calf problems in the Parkhead side’s crucial Champions League play off tie, admits he feels a different, more confident player since those two pieces of set piece magic which he conjured up against the Auld Enemy in May and visualises them every time he stands over a dead ball. Having scored another beauty at this stage last year against Hapoel Be’er Sheva, how he would love to recreate the moment against the Kazakhs this evening. So often does Griffiths watch his claim to fame back - a moment he jokes that “ruined” Joe Hart - that he can rhyme off the exact timing, 168 minutes into SkySports’ running time of the match, to find the footage.

“Standing over a free-kick tomorrow night, when the ref is lining up their wall, I’ll close my eyes and think about Hampden and last year against Hapoel,” said Griffiths. “And near enough every other free-kick I have scored. I’m just hoping I can replicate one of them.

“Do those experiences give me something?” he added. “Yeah, especially the Scotland v England game. There was massive expectation on me to get the goals to keep our World Cup dream alive. I thought my all-round game that day was good. It could still have been a little bit better but I scored two goals and helped the team get a massive point. I was gutted it wasn’t all three. But tomorrow night is a different ball game altogether. This is your bread and butter. Celtic belong in the Champions League and hopefully I am the man to fire them in there.”

In addition to his goals against the Israelis, Griffiths scored home and away as the Parkhead side squeezed past Astana 12 months ago - scoring a penalty in the second leg then making way for Moussa Dembele to fire in the last minute spot kick winner. With the Frenchman out until September through injury, Griffiths has things all his own way now - or he would have were it not for a nagging calf problem which has dogged him in early season. But he is ready to be let off the leash against the Kazakhs,

“The calves are good,” he said. “They were feeling good on Friday as well but the gaffer has to look at the next two Champions League games and he wants his best players available so he took a precaution. I’m raring to go. I’ve not felt any problem over the weekend or over the last two days training so I’m feeling really good.”

Griffiths’ freakishly large calves are the problem - his manager said last week they were the biggest at the club - but he has learned to leave nothing to chance when it comes to prevent himself becoming susceptible to such injuries. Rather than rush himself back early as he did last season, Griffiths showed the wisdom of an experienced player to report an issue to the management team ahead of the visit to Partick Thistle on Friday night, and reports to Lennoxtown early these days for extra massage and treatment to ensure his muscles are warm by the time training starts.

“I’ve had this size of calves since I was 15 - they’re maybe the biggest at the club,” he said. “But it is just one of those things. People develop different problems in their body and unluckily for me it is my calves. Last season I probably wasn’t doing my rehab as long as I should have done. They probably tried to rush me back too quickly. Obviously when you are injured you are working with the physios but when you come back you tend to drift away from all that. Now I am in early in the morning to work with the physios to make sure my legs are nice and warm, the blood is circulating through my muscles.”

If last season’s matches are anything to go by, Astana should be difficult house guests at Parkhead, and even more problematic on their artificial pitch of the Astana Arena. But then Celtic have also come on leaps and bounds from the hesitant outfit who were still finding their feet under Rodgers back then.

“If you look at the team last year and compare it to the one that will play tomorrow it is night and day,” said Griffiths. “Last year, the gaffer had not long come in. He was still trying to stamp his authority on the team and how he wanted to go about it. Now we have a real aggression about us, especially at home. Teams are frightened to come to Celtic Park with the dominance we have and hopefully we can take that into tomorrow night.

“But I don’t think we need to win as long as we don’t concede,” he added. “A 0-0 we would take because we know we are capable of going away from home and scoring goals. We proved that in the last round against Rosenborg. Regardless of the opposition we can dominate and score goals.”