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Griffiths’ Goal In A Bounce Game Today Is The Last Thing Ibrox Wanted. He’s Ready.

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Leigh Griffiths popped the ball into the net in a bounce game against a Motherwell Select today; that’s great news for Celtic and it is bad, bad news for the Ibrox club prior to next week’s game. If Ajeti makes it, we can go into that game with two potent strikers even if Eddie doesn’t.

This has been on the cards for a week now, since Leigh popped up to score right on the edge of us dropping points against St Johnstone.

“Leagues are won on days like today,” I said in the article after that match, and it’s true … but leagues are also won by those players who have a wonderful ability to be in the right place at the right time too.

And nobody does that better than Leigh Griffiths.

Part of the rage – and that’s the correct word for it – that exploded in Sevco cyberspace after the game last weekend was about the scorer as much as the goal itself.

They look at our squad and they analyse the threats in it. Some, they stupidly dismiss.

But they know Eddie can do it on the day, if he’s up for it and if he gets just a little room to run.

They don’t know if Ajeti or Klimala can. I think both are well capable of it, and in the case of Ajeti he most definitely is, and will score against them in this campaign.

But even they are 100% sure that Griffiths can do it, regardless of the form he’s in or the game he’s having or how well they lock the door. He’s one of those players – Ajeti is another, and the good fortune of having both will win us this league – who pops up where it should be impossible and who exploits the tiniest gap in the backline.

They were absolutely scunnered at his return to the team, and especially that he had gotten a winning goal.

The spectre of him hovering in the penalty box next weekend is one they could have done without seeing in their nightmares.

They were, until that moment, quite certain they had dodged that bullet.

Not so anymore. The prospect of him playing is very real, and they know it, and if he’s in the team he’ll give that shaky defence of theirs nightmares all day long and they know that as well. This is the sort of match he thrives in. It is the sort of game he was made for.

That goal last weekend was hugely significant; the one he scored in a bounce game today might prove to be as well.

It puts him one step closer to playing. It was clearly organised to get him and others into a place where they’d be ready for that match.

And he is, you know. If it were played tomorrow, with Eddie and Ajeti both out, you know for sure he would start.

If either of them doesn’t make it next week – and Eddie has to be a major doubt, just because he’s in isolation – expect Griffiths to be in the line-up.

He played the 90 minutes today, in a game which also featured Soro – who some say was the best man on the park – and Diego Laxalt. The team which lined up was; Bain, Ralston, Welsh, Hjeldi, Diego, Soro, Brown, Henderson, Kadi, Harper and Griffiths.

Forgotten man Tony Ralston, back at the club now, got the other goal in a match we won 2-1.

It all bodes well for next weekend; the signs are good that our new bhoy will make his debut, for one … but it’s that man up front who could make all the difference.

This article has been slightly amended … apparently (haha) I had Record journo Gary Ralston with the other goal.

About as unlikely as if I, the other James Forrest, had scored it. 

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