LEIGH Griffiths last night insisted Celtic still have the best squad and Scotland despite their disappointing run of form - and can resurrect their 10-In-A-Row bid with a win over St Johnstone this afternoon.
Many supporters of the Parkhead club have called for manager Neil Lennon, whose side have fallen 11 points behind Rangers, struggled in the Europa League and been knocked out of the Betfred Cup, to be sacked.
But Griffiths, who has recovered from the knee injury that kept him out of the defeat to Ross County last Sunday, is adamant the Scottish champions, who have two games in hand, can still win the Premiership.
And he stressed that he and his team mates are ignoring those who are predicting their long reign as the dominant force in this country is set to come to an end in the 2020/21 campaign and focusing fully on getting back to winning ways.
“I wouldn’t change anybody in the changing room for anybody else in Scotland,” he said. “One million per cent. That’s my view on it and I think everybody else in there would feel the exact same way.
“We don’t listen to outside noise, it’s about what we do. We want to collect the three points and move on. They can talk however they like. We keep everything in-house.
“We know what we are all about, if we keep doing our job, working hard in training, results will turn for us. But we need the results to start talking. Hopefully that starts this weekend.”
READ MORE: 'We're not a million miles away': Neil Lennon says Celtic are close to being a real force once again
Griffiths came off the bench and scored a last-minute goal for Celtic in a 2-0 win over St Johnstone in Perth back in October and is confident he can do the same if he gets the nod to start against the McDiarmid Park club at Parkhead today.
“If required I will be chomping at the bit to get on and help the team get three points,” he said. “St Johnstone will come down and make it tough, just like Ross County did. Hopefully, it’s a different result.
“If I was starting games it would be an ideal opportunity to get a lot more fitness into me. But I can’t fault the boys just now. Odsonne (Edouard) and the boys are playing well. You can’t budge them. It’s up to the manager, who he decides to pick and if he decides to pick me I’m raring to go.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel