Celtic boss Neil Lennon has very publicly given Leigh Griffiths a dressing down.
The Scottish hitman was omitted from the club’s pre-season tour in France earlier this month.
Reports indicated that it was because the Celtic striker returned to training looking overweight following the hiatus between March and June.
And Lennon has confirmed that in a stinging interview via The Record, revealing that bringing him on the tour was ‘absolutely pointless’ due to the fact that he was nowhere near fit enough.
He said: “I’m not happy. I think that’s fairly obvious by the fact that we’ve left him behind.
“He’s come back out of condition and overweight. Any physical work we asked him to do he was coming out of saying he was injured. That’s going to be the case because he’s out of condition.
“It would have been absolutely pointless bringing him with us. We had an extensive week in Loughborough and he wouldn’t have been fit to play the games here.”
Griffiths has had a difficult few years at Celtic and missed some eight months of football in 2019 after being granted leave due to mental health issues.
But the former Hibernian is a frightening goalscorer and even netted a hat-trick in the Hoops’ last competitive game before the lockdown.
Lennon has clearly thrown down the gauntlet here and it’ll be interesting to see how he responds.
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