CELTIC..............2 (Griffiths 13, Mackay-Steven 22)

RENNES............0

Leigh Griffiths once again underlined his determination to make the main striker’s jersey his own at Celtic Park this season as Celtic saw off French side Rennes with a comfortable 2-0 win this afternoon.

The Scotland internationalist netted his fifth goal in a week – a hat-trick last weekend in a friendly against Eibar as well as one against FC Stjarnan in Iceland on Wednesday evening before he sunk an impressive finish in this afternoon’s friendly win over Rennes have added up to an impressive tally – and also served Ronny Deila with notice that he has an on-form forward under his nose.

Griffiths was overlooked for a starting place in both UEFA Champions League qualifying matches against Stjarnan in favour of new addition Nadir Ciftci. While the Turkish attacker lends a more physical edge to Celtic’s attack, he has yet to find the net since arriving at the club from Dundee United earlier this month.

With Wednesday’s night’s first-leg third round UEFA Champions League qualifier against Qarabag on the horizon, Deila has food for thought in terms of personnel. Yet, while Griffiths has given him the kind of headache that all managers claim to favour, Charlie Mulgrew has given him worry of a different nature.

The utility player was used at left-back against Stjarnan and was fully expected to play there this week given the unpredictability defensively of Emilio Izaguirre. However, Mulgrew was forced out of the action ten minutes before the break after falling awkwardly going for a 50-50 ball and it remains to be seen whether or not he is sufficiently fit to take his place against Qarabag.

Similarly, Mikael Lustig and Stefan Johansen made no contribution at all against Rennes. The Swede had gone off against Stjarnan with Deila insisting that his removal from the Icelandic plastic pitch was purely precautionary, but he did not feature in the squad at all today and nor did Johansen.

In terms of what went on throughout the 90 minutes, Deila would have been satisfied enough. There were some neat passages of play – one dinked effort from Nir Bitton over the Rennes defence and to the feet of Gary Mackay-Steven drew applause from the small crowd – while Dedryck Boyata continues to look assured at the heart of the Celtic defence.

The goals, too, would have pleased Deila. Griffiths took his goal well, collecting the ball on the right before bursting into the box and weaving his way through the Rennes defence before slotting a low effort inside the goalkeeper.

Mackay-Steven doubled Celtic’s advantage when he collected from Stuart Armstrong – another who has cut and assured and confident figure in these early days of the season – and dinked a left-foot effort into the net.

As he said in the build-up to the game, Deila effectively put out a different team in the second period with Saidy Janko given his Celtic Park debut while Ciftci, Tom Rogic, Stefan Scepovic, Anthony Stokes, Eoghan O’Connell and Callum McGregor were also introduced to the fray.

It meant the rhythm of the game was interrupted - Rennes too indulged in various changes as the game wore on - but in terms of a warm-up exercise, Deila will view it is a decent 90 minutes.