I doubt even Leigh Griffiths’ dad thought he had this kind of form in him when he signed for Celtic in January last year. The then 23-year-old had ‘squad filler’ written all over him as he waited in line behind Gary Hooper and Anthony Stokes. The arrival of John Guidetti and Stefan Scepovic a year ago could have limited Leigh’s chances further, but neither showed enough form to make the striker position their own.
Prospects looked bleak last season. Two starts before Christmas, Leigh spent time with the youths and looked to be heading out of the club in January, but with the manager’s mind increasingly made up on Guidetti and Scepovic, he got his chance. The transformation has been remarkable. His goals return compares to the best in the modern era, but it’s the type of goals he scores which has caught the attention most.
He’s fast, skilful, can out-jump central defenders and scores goals in big games. Should Celtic choose to play with Carlton Cole as a target man, Leigh will also be able to play to his left.
Whatever Ronny Deila achieves this season, the improvement in Leigh Griffiths will feature high up the list. Leigh’s attitude to self-improvement is also worth noting.
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Nir Biton signs new deal till 2020
P
“Just a goalscorer”. Imo, the most important signing Jock Stein ever made was that of Joe McBride. Joe was “just a goalscorer”. But he gave the Lions the confidence every team needs, because, before he got injured in the best of all seasons for Celtic, we all just knew that Joe would score. In fact, it was a question of how many and which part of his anatomy.
If Leigh Griffiths contributes half as much to our team, he’ll do fine.
PLAYFUSBAL4GUILDERS,
If that news is kosher, that’s the best news I’ve heard all week.
three sweeps of the blade.
good reflection on meejah from Ronnie.
good victory on saturday
and nothing fc leave edinburgh with ..erm nothing
well done Ronnie in defending our club.
HH
CELTIC are delighted to announce that Nir Bitton has signed a new contract that will see him remain at the club until the summer of 2020.
The Israeli internationalist, who just celebrated his 24th birthday last Friday, joined Celtic from FC Ashdod in August 2013, and he made his competitive debut against AC Milan in the San Siro, coming on as a substitute in the last minute.
He has gone on to make 82 appearances for the Hoops to date, scoring six goals, including a stunning strike against Ajax in the Amsterdam ArenA earlier this season.
He is also a regular for the Israeli national side and scored his first international goal in September this year, in a 4-0 win over Andorra.
Speaking exclusively to the official Celtic website, Nir Bitton said: “As soon as I got a new offer from Celtic I had no questions about signing. When you play for a club like Celtic you don’t think twice.
“It’s a huge club, the best fans in the world and Celtic Park is one of the best stages in Europe so I’m just delighted to extend my stay here.
“Celtic is a special club and every time I go to the pitch I get goosebumps. When the fans sing You’ll Never Walk Alone it’s like something from a dream and these kinds of things make my life easier and happier – I’m just happy to stay here.
“As a player, when you get the trust of a club it gives you confidence and you appreciate it. You just want to give that back as much as you can and like I say, when you play here you don’t think twice.
“I enjoy every minute at Celtic and my wife is very happy here so there was never any need for change. This is where I want to be.
“I have a great relationship with the manager and the backroom staff at Celtic who have all been magnificent with me and I have a group of team-mates who I respect so highly.
“I am so pleased to commit my long-term future to Celtic and I now look forward to doing everything I can to bring the Club and our fans more and more success.”
Parkheadcumsalford,
All over SSN just now.
I’ve no inside info , justa telly
HH
http://www.celticfc.net/news/9432?
LB
Whoop Whoop Big Nir signs on…
RWE
Regarding your earlier post about offensive behaviour. Your post highlights the most significant failing in the legislation in most observer’s eyes, what exactly is ‘offensive’?
On Saturday some Aberdeen supporters sang about paedophelia as a way of winding up the Celtic support. Now as far as I’m aware there have been no subsequent arrests and I didn’t see anyone being ejected from the ground.
Now, is the Saville song offensive? Personally, I would say that is.
Should singing it result in arrest? In my opinion no.
However, what makes a chant of, “Well, Well, f*** yer Well!” by two Hamilton supporters in the street, with no Motherwell supporters in the vicinity, more deserving of arrest than hundreds/thousands singing about Paedophelia only yards away from those it’s intended to offend?
In Hamilton police officers deemed the ‘Well’ song offensive and as a result 2 17 year olds spent the weekend in Greenock prison.
At Parkhead on Saturday, no arrests or ejections, suggests that no one deemed the paedophile song in the same way.
The Act is open to interpretation by any given police officer on any given day.
That’s dangerous.
Great bit of business by Celtic. Time for another crisis headline?
lovingthebanterCSC
Gene-it can be one and the same,i remember loads of games at CP,where opposition have parked 2 buses,70 odd minutes played and up pops Henrik to break the deadlock,not comparing HL to LG of course,but getting the first goal is vital IMO HH
was lookin for a post by RobertTressell(i think) pointing out the only 100% record they have achieved is not achieving any records lol:-).made me smile
HH
Eat enough of those Tunnock’s tea cakes with their light and fluffy filling and you too could be as airborne as wee Leigh Griffiths.
great news on nir biton
A 1 year extension for Forrest,needs to be available to play,a 3 year deal ,given his last 3 years would be stupid IMO
Brilliant Celtic, well done in getting one of our best players signed up long term.
Well done celtic.
And well done Nir. You deserve it.
HH
MiT
Letter received today, many thanks.
Coolmore mafia
I agree that it hasn’t always just been directed towards Celtic fans – but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t sectarian when it is, particularly when the chants name prominent RCs and Ex Celts. Can you think of fans from any other club who are subjected to these chants?
The original behavioiur chanted about is widely associated (almost exclusively by some) in the media with the Catholic Church. The club’s association with the Church is still strong eg last weeks anniversary mass at St Marys. The chants are directed at Celtic fans who identify with that church and are designed to offend that group. We know it and the offenders know it. We are living in a very differently “policed” world now with different legislation that, whether we like it or not, is being applied to all that we do.
The fact that other fans have chanted odious stuff against other people is irrelevant in this scenario. It is offensive but not an offence. Selecting an individual for unacceptable chants is one thing – but is still odious.
However, offensive chanting to a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation at or to/from a football match is a specified offence under the OBAF Act.
Under the same act apparently, we as a support, are being criminalized for singing “Go Home ya Huns”. Now that is banter to me – not according to Police Scotland, but for me, the “just banter” argument can’t and doesn’t apply when “the line” has been crossed.
All of the chants you mentioned crossed that line for me, but the ones from Saturday were directed at a cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation, about people with the same affiliation, were offensive and were intended to be.
Section One (below) of the act has been comprehensively breached.
” A person commits an offence if, in relation to a regulated football match—
(a) the person engages in behaviour of a kind described in subsection (2), and
(b )the behaviour—
(i) is likely to incite public disorder, or
(ii) would be likely to incite public disorder.
(2) The behaviour is—
(a) expressing hatred of, or stirring up hatred against, a group of persons based on their membership (or presumed membership) of—
(i) a religious group,
(ii) a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation,
(iii) a group defined by reference to a thing mentioned in subsection (4),
(b) expressing hatred of, or stirring up hatred against, an individual based on the individual’s membership (or presumed membership) of a group mentioned in any of sub-paragraphs (i) to (iii) of paragraph (a),
(c) behaviour that is motivated (wholly or partly) by hatred of a group mentioned in any of those sub-paragraphs,
(d) behaviour that is threatening, or
(e) other behaviour that a reasonable person would be likely to consider offensive.”
Police Scotland use this act to balance the sectarian crime stats – and this was precisely the intention of those who drafted it.
If we want to be smart then we have to use it to address offensive behaviour (that even I can make a decent case for) is directed at “a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation” – Celtic fans.
That the chant is not sung at other grounds to fans of any other team really does speak to the sectarian intent of those who sing it. We are targeted because of that perceived affiliation.
Time that Police Scotland and some politicians understood what a can of worms they opened in trying to equalize offences by redrawing the boundaries of criminal conduct.
Hope you are well.
Hamiltontim ….. no, my friend.. I am the one who should be thanking you…. for this, and for all the work you do. You’re a credit to our club.
Hail hail
Posted yesterday about Celtic Football Club .using Parks one of the 3 Bears who loaned Sevco .money.that our club use one of his buses.for players etc Aberdeen have there own bus .why we haven’t is a mystery to me.see that’s just one of the many things that s wrong with our club.so out of touch with the fans.I suppose with some good leadership we could get rid of the directors First one should be that Dermot Desmond .no interest in our club never there.same as later in the month for A G M he will not be there some decent good Celtic men should think seriously about buying all his shares .and be rid of him once and for all Fergus made a big mistake appointing him to the club.
Re Leigh G’s miracle of levetation the answer may be a helluva lot simpler than you realise…..that is of course if you subscribe to the theory of Darwin and now taken to the world by a ‘popular culturist’ like Richard Dawkins.
We share approximately 60% of our genetic map with those of the avian tendency – I.e. Birds….NOT…Burds (I’ll be fecked if I could even hazard a guess at what constitutes the archetypal female. Apart that is from soft gentle curves, the deepest green, blue brown, black ‘come and explore me baby’ eyes, a slightly moist massage-inviting sheen, and taste bud exploding suckable toes….oops….back to the birds)
But of course there is a big gap between 60% and 100%
I believe that following the throries of genetic mutation and also the inheritance of genetic and hence physical capabilities, Leigh has either inherited a strand or two of ‘flying DNA’ ,or in his own singular DNA evolution, he has randomly created a set of chromosomes that give him the ability of Tinkerbell
Of course it could be that or it’s an optical illusion and he hasn’t really floated like a butterfly….. Although may his sting remain bee-like in front of goal.
Now back to BURDS.
Hail Hail
Estadio
Estadio
Nir Bitton sIgning a new contract until 2020 is great news and. Fantastic business.
No doubt Nir has been tracked by others and hopefully this can be seen as a vote of confidence and a measure of our ambition.
If Nir had wanted away our custodians would have been slaughtered on here, so maybe praise where praise is due.
HH.
Glendaystonsils, That made me laugh!
ROY CROPPIE on 2ND NOVEMBER 2015 4:41 PM
Great bit of business by Celtic. Time for another crisis headline?
“CRISIS CLUB CELTIC STUCK WITH ISRAELI FLOP FOR FOUR MORE YEARS!! ”
JJ
PS On a personal level, I am very pleased.
Incidentally, I saw Nir and Stefan leave the ground (not together) about half an hour after the game on Saturday. I was always under the impression both sets of players had an after-match drink (Aberdeen players were also leaving). Is that a thing of the past now with the pressures of fitness levels in the modern game?
PPS Both players were incredibly obliging in signing autographs and posing for photo`s from many, many supporters.
MiT
I’m undeserving of such praise but thank you my friend.
timbhoy3 on 2nd November 2015 4:59 pm – See more at: http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/building-leigh-griffiths/comment-page-3/#comments
I think it might be possible that Parks provide the bus for the publicity and association with the club? Also not to seen as being associated with only 3 year old clubs?
The ole Southampton scout rips up his list of transfer target(s)…
lovebigNir’sspinCSC
Folks, if there’s anyone else who’s a shareholder, who can’t make the AGM and would be happy for the Celtic Trust to act as their proxy can you please get in touch at hamiltontim88@yahoo.co.uk
Many, many thanks to those who’ve already sent me their forms.
There must be good Tims with a bus company? I have no problem looking after our own.
timbhoy3
Get on the bus the big green bus, are you related to Tinbhoy 2??
Where ye been hiding?
HamiltonTim
I agree with that the discretion given to the police as to what constitutes offensive is very broad.
I have said this on here before but I also qualified it by saying that this discretion can only work when there is honesty, transparency, fairness and accountability from the police. That has been shown to be missing on many occasions.
The law was politically and not socially motivated and thus police action and stats are being measured against political agenda and not social imperatives or community needs. The Hamilton bannergate nonsense made that very clear.
In Scotland’s chattering classes, sectarianism is considered something that drunk OF fans do. It is so institutionalized that people from all levels do it and then justify it by other means. This chant is just a symptom of that for me.
The Scottish Government have put an anti-sectarian law on the books that has not improved the quality of life for Celtic fans, because it wan’t intended to do this. It has not reduced the level of sectarianism that Celtic fans hear at grounds around Scotland and on the way to and from these matches, again because that wasn’t the intention.
I say this because it really is my contention that, despite it being an poorly drafted draconian piece of duplicating law, it does offer a way for Celtic fans to use it to reduce offensive chants directed at them.
The P chants are a point in question.
The offences were prevalent within our extended religious community which means that proportionately more Catholics were victims of those crimes. Chants about that wave of crime directed specifically at a group containing probably the most victims of those crimes are offensive in and of themselves, but when that social group has a specific religious affiliation, real of perceived, then this act gives us some redress.
I don’t accept that it isn’t a crime and we’ll just disagree on that. For me, the chants were sectarian under under the old legislation.
I guess the question is can we protest against the Act while making a formal complaint under it to reduce our own exposure to sectarianism.
Now if fans at every other ground or even just any other ground were subjected to the same chants then the complaint case is much weaker. I don’t know of any other ground/fans where this happens but I am removed from things a bit.
Hope you are well and saw the link to the Calgary teachers conference.
If Cowiebhoy is on thank you very much for the recommendations re Barbados. Good piece of ‘Tripadvising’!! Also your tip on St Lucia as we arrive there later this week, unfortunately not on the Friday, though. Thanks again, HH
Great News about Bitton.
KLV
I thought Jonny Hayes was very good on Saturday. Were we linked with him at one time? A genuine link, I mean, not one of the MSSM links where we are linked with EVERYONE!
JJ
Paul, I was in Aberdeen on Saturday using 3G, it was an absolute nightmare trying to get on the site, actually impossible. It was such a disappointment as I wanted to share the aberdonians pain with everyone, alas I just had to enjoy it all on my own. But seriously, hellish ads.
Everyone else has there own team bus, we need to get one and then Sack DD? Who posts that?lol.
As I keep saying look for the negativity it’s there, even if you. Have to make it up yourself.
Lurking Huns GIRFUYs
LG’s form is down to a simple neutering operation performed at the vets over the summer break.
Now all his ‘burd enegy’, as Leigh calls it, can be directed towards the opposition goal.
This time last year the big rumour was he would be loaned to the Edinburgh Jedis in January to help carry their resistance to the resurgent dark side.
By sheer effort he played his way into the team between the impostor Guidetti and the lost soul Scepovic.
Now, having shown he can score a barrowload in spite of a system designed for efficiency and sparsity over the traditiponal Celtic SPl way of laying down a target-practice seige, Leigh deserves a reward – a strike partner.
Carlton Cole?
With Broony out on Thursday any chance of controlling the mid with our regular system is vague – he’s the kingpin in there and the only one we have capable of dominating – what better time to partner the two up front?
Go 4-4-2, Ronny, keep us solid. TRhrow LG and CC at them. Molde won’t expect it and we’ll see if their Euro tactic can handle a good old-fashioned Celtic barrage.