The Celtic marksman announced his return to fitness in style yesterday.
Celtic hitman Leigh Griffiths has told The Scottish Sun that he had a lot of frustration to manage during his time on the sidelines.
The Scottish striker scored in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Hamilton for what was his first game in well over a month due to a calf injury.
Griffiths, who earns £14,000 per week at Parkhead [Daily Star], has now revealed the ‘dark times’ during his injury layoff.
“It’s always nice to be back on the pitch. It’s been a frustrating six weeks for me. I’ve been trying to build myself back up to full fitness so to come back and score like that was great,” he told The Scottish Sun.
“They were dark times — there was a lot of frustration but you just have to get on with it, you have to do your rehab properly. It didn’t help that I was ill for ten days, that took up a chunk of my recovery time.”
The 28-year-old, who scored 40 goals for Celtic during the 2015-16 campaign, went on to reveal that a mid-match pep talk from manager Brendan Rodgers inspired him to find the net.
Griffiths, who added the third on 82 minutes, said to The Scottish Sun: “So the goal was sweet. The manager pulled me aside with about 20 minutes left and said ‘go on and do what you can’.
“I think it was actually my first touch that I scored with!”
Simply put, Griffiths is a massive asset for the Hoops and Thursday’s clash away to Rosenborg in the Europa League is a lot more exciting with him available.
Aside from Odsonne Edouard, Celtic haven’t had a goalscorer like Griffiths available over the past five or six weeks, so the Scot’s return is a major boost.
Victory for Rodgers’s side on Thursday would propel them up to second in their group, if Leipzig drop points away to runaway leaders Red Bull Salzburg in Austria.
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