On 30th August Leigh Griffiths became the 29th Celt to score 100 goals. The 4th direct free kick of his Hoops career saw him join many Celtic greats like McGrory, Lennox, Larsson, Dalglish, Murdoch and more.
Opponents
Griffiths scored in his second appearance for Celtic on 22nd February 2014, away to Heart of Midlothian in the SPFL.
It was the first of 6 goals against The Jambos. But his most favoured opponent is Inverness Caledonian Thistle against whom he has racked up 11 goals.
Goal Calendar
Griffiths has managed 20, 40 and 18 in his full completed seasons. He has only failed to score in 13 of the months Celtic have had matches since February 2014. His best tally was 8 in January 2016.
From the initial goal versus Heart of Midlothian to the last goal versus FK Suduva, here is his productivity by month.
By Competition
It is safe to say that Griffith’s terrorises Scottish teams’ defences. His Goals per 90m rate domestically is almost 1 per game. In Europe it is more than respectable also.
By Venue
Griffiths is happy to score on any ground and has almost a 50/50 split between home and away goals. He has 1 goal at Hampden in a League Cup Semi Final versus The Rangers.
Shot Accuracy
Not shy of shooting, he nevertheless has a respectable shot accuracy of 44%.
* Please note the key is the wrong way round! Shots on Target is 44% and Off Target 56%.Duh.
Shot Conversion
Griffiths converts 15% of all his shots. Celtic as a team are only managing 11% this season.
Goal Miscellany
Despite reputation he has only scored from 4 direct free kicks. His success rate from shots taken from direct free kicks is 6% which is slightly above average. He hits the target 38% of the time from free kicks which is 6% worse than his accuracy from all shots.
He has scored 4 hat tricks including in consecutive matches he played in April 2015. The last one was in January 2016 though.
Well done Leigh!
Here’s to the next 100!
Charlie Saiz says
Excellent stuff again bud.
I did a basic goals /game comparison on Etims not so long ago concerning Hooper Griffiths and Dembele and from open play Hooper was top Griffith 2nd and Dembele 3rd.
Which I think surprised some but given Griffiths when played tends to take the bulk of set pieces which obviously takes him out of the equation in the box other than a direct free kick.
The other two would be in the goal mouth area waiting for the delivery.
Dembele on other hand would generally deployed as a makeshift defender on set pieces at the other end his ruling him out on counters.
This I think is why Hoopers rate is that bit bit better as he is/was yer typical poacher of Goals playing off the last man.
Until Lenny tried to turn him into Dembele that is and started dropping him off a bit deeper towards the end of his stint at Celtic which of course had an impact on his goal returns.
Many factors contribute to a Strikers effectiveness and of course all 3 were differing types of Forwards who were deployed in different ways to achieve ultimately the same aim.
My argument has always been if you play them to their strengths then you will inevitably get better results out of them as Deila proved with Griffiths he can be deployed as a lone striker but with the correct system and personnel backing him up?
Take another look at McLeish v Belgium last week for confirmation on that.
Left isolated and having to come deep thus negating his effectiveness up front.
Just my observations.
Lubos Boots says
Nice summary of a guy we’re lucky to have. Seems happy to stick around the club and we’re very very fortunate to benefit from such prodigious goal scoring stats!
Dresden says
Great summary of a great striker! He takes a lot of corners and free kicks, so his ratio could have been better but let’s hope for plenty more!!
Haill! Hail! and thanks again for all your analysis; great reading!