The Celtic hitman does not seem prepared to cover Moussa Dembele again next season.
Speaking to The Glasgow Evening Times, Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths has suggested that he will not play second fiddle to Moussa Dembele up front next season.
Dembele proved himself a revelation at Celtic last season after scoring 30 goals in all competitions following a £500,000 move from Fulham 12 months ago.
As a consequence of the 20-year-old’s form, Griffiths, who scored 40 times for the Hoops during the 2015-16 season under Ronny Deila, only started 15 Scottish Premiership outings for Brendan Rodgers last term.
The 26-year-old hitman’s stock grew earlier this month after scoring twice in Scotland’s 2-2 draw with England, before The Daily Mirror reported that Premier League side Newcastle United were interested in a £6 million swoop.
And Griffiths has now suggested that he won’t do another season as Celtic’s back-up marksman, saying he will speak to Rodgers to find out “what’s going to happen” if it becomes clear that the Northern Irishman favours Dembele over him again.
“I don’t want to be going back on the bench for the full campaign, I want to be playing,” he told The Glasgow Evening Times.
“I’m going to be 27 in August, I’m no spring chicken I’m probably in the best form of my career so far and it’s one of those ones when you don’t want to be playing second fiddle. But the manager knows that. He knows he has two players who want to play week in, week out and it’s up to us to fight it out for that one position.
“The Champions League qualifiers come up very quickly so he has to make his mind up pretty quickly about who’s going to be number one.
When asked if he saw himself warming the bench in the first few weeks of the 2017-18 campaign, Griffiths added: “If it’s that the case I’ll need to go away and work hard and speak to the manager to find out what’s going to happen, if I’m going to be playing second fiddle or I’m going to get my chance sooner rather than later.
“You never know, I might start the season ahead of Moussa. It’s up to the manager and what he wants to go with.”
The problem with having two phenomenal goalscorers in a system designed to house one is that one is always going to end up unhappy over not playing as regularly as the other.
And by mentioning his age and the fact he is no “spring chicken”, it certainly seems as if the Celtic ace is suggesting that he will look elsewhere if the Frenchman is ahead of him in the pecking order again.
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