KARMA has a way of catching up with people.
Leigh Griffiths is about to find that out the hard way at Dens Park.
He was laughing when he tied that Celtic scarf to one of the goalposts at Ibrox a few seasons back.
Grinning from ear to ear during an Old Firm game the day he waved his Irish tricolour from the Broomloan Road Stand.
When he wiped his nose on a Rangers corner flag he thought he was being clever.
Well, let’s see how smart he is when Rangers supporters tell him what they think of him.
Griffiths is about to get bombarded with 90 minutes of relentless abuse and if he’s got a brain in that head of his he better be prepared to take it.
Listen, I’m not going to go into the reasons why supporters all over the country are going to give him a hard time this season. Frankly, I want nothing to do with it.
But what I will say is that Griffiths only has himself to blame — and the sooner he realises that the better.
Will he, though? Is he capable of accepting responsibility for anything in life? I’m not sure he is.
It seems to me that every time something happens to him he thinks it’s someone else’s fault.
He wasn’t to blame for how things worked out for him at Celtic, was he? No, that was all Neil Lennon’s fault apparently.
Honestly, I can’t remember reading anything as ridiculous as when Griffiths spoke about Lennon recently and claimed his ex-boss was just trying to stay relevant by talking about him. Really?
Are we talking about the same high-profile Neil Lennon who has been one of the most talked about personalities in Scottish football in the last 20 years?
Griffiths can’t surely be serious when he says Lennon needs him to stay relevant.
But that sums him up, doesn’t it? Rather than owning his mistakes and taking responsibility for them, his default position is to go on the attack.
If only he was as threatening on the park.
Because when you strip everything back with Griffiths, he’s not the player his fan club will have you believe.
Is he a good finisher? Sure, I’ll give him that. But in the last three seasons do you know how many league goals he’s scored? Let me tell you because I looked it up. It’s 17.
Two goals in season 2018/19, nine goals in season 19/20 and six goals in season 20/21.
I’m sorry, but that’s not the statistics of a top-level goalscorer.
This is someone with natural talent, sure.
But that’s not enough if you are to be considered a top player.
Yet his cheerleaders are forever making excuses for him, constantly telling anyone who’ll listen that Griffiths would prove everyone wrong.
That he just needed to get fit and he’d be back.
Griffiths ended up saying it himself but it was total and utter nonsense, every single word of it.
Griffiths is yet to score for Dundee
Griffiths has had more than enough time and opportunity to get himself in shape and he’s only thrown it back in people’s faces.
The scoring records in Scottish football should have been OBLITERATED by him in the last five years. Instead he put the tools away and it seems like he couldn’t care less.
Why Celtic gave him a new contract in the summer, I’ll never know. For the life of me, I’ll never be able to work that one out.
Even their supporters must have been scratching their heads.
Those fans slaughtered me for criticising Griffiths and more or less saying it takes more than just ability to play at a top club.
But while my wording could have been better I think I’ve been proved right. When he scored at Rugby Park one day he looked up at me and made a shooshing gesture, but I stand by every word. He’s not exactly silenced me since, has he?
Now he’s at Dundee I wonder if his manager James McPake is beginning to wonder if it was a good idea bringing him to the club.
They’re pals from their days together at Livingston so I can understand why McPake was prepared to give Griffiths the benefit of any doubt.
But since he signed, Dundee have yet to score a goal.
Listen, I’ve been there. I got abuse every single time I stepped on to a football park and had to take it. It’s part of the deal.
Okay, the shouts weren’t anything like the abuse Griffiths is getting but he’s 31 now and should be experienced enough to know how to switch off from it.
I just look at him and see someone who is more or less finished. Truth be told, he’s the way I was when I was at Kilmarnock and hung up my boots a couple of months before my 36th birthday.
I didn’t have the same drive to stay in shape so I realised it was time to hang up the boots.
As a striker you stand the best chance of playing every week, because it’s a specialist position. But you need to deliver.
Griffiths just hasn’t looked like delivering for a long time now. His decline is there for all to see with his scoring record miles off where it should be.
During the warm-up before the Dundee derby at Tannadice last weekend we were in the gantry preparing for kick-off when a ball flew past.
We were nowhere near the goals so it was obvious someone was deliberately trying to hit us.
I didn’t see who was responsible — but my money would be on Griffiths.
Why? Because he missed.
