Leigh Griffiths will go under the knife today for a tidy up operation after a season which the striker has admitted to being particularly frustrating.

The Scotland internationalist netted on Sunday afternoon as the club paid homage to Scott Brown for his decade of service but Griffiths has admitted that he needs the break now before kicking on again after a month off.

The player remains just shy of his 100-goal target, a landmark that has become more frustrating the nearer he has got to it. At one stage this season Griffiths voiced a belief that he’d be there before the turn of the year with the fact that it eluded him to the conclusion of the campaign underlining just how staccato his season was.

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“I’m looking forward to a rest after a long, often frustrating, season,” he said. “I’ll have four weeks off to recharge the batteries and then I’ll be back ready to start again. I’m good for a break – I need to rest my body before pre-season training.

“We’re not thinking about Europe at the moment but, once we come back, there will be a plan in place. There will be meetings and we’ll have targets which we’ll be expected to meet during the course of the season.

“First of all, you want to get off to a good start and, from a personal point of view, I want to be in the team and scoring goals. I’m just hoping to be injury-free next season so that I can kick on.”

There will be little chance of Celtic easing into things when they do return. There are four rounds of qualifiers required in order for the Parkhead side to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League, with the games kicking off early in July.

The fraught nature of the qualifiers adds to the tension of trying to qualify and Griffiths, having endured four previous summers spent fighting through qualifiers, knows exactly what lies in wait.

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“Obviously, we want to get back into the group stage but we have four ties to get through this time,” he said. “Everyone thinks that should be easy because we’re in with so-called lesser teams but, if anything, having to play eight games to get there makes it even harder for us.

“But our fans will have a good summer and the players will too. Hopefully, the boys who are going to the World Cup will be successful there, too. What we’ve done this year is a great achievement and we’re buzzing about it but the main focus has to be what happens next so we’ll need to go again.

“We can do both [Europe and domestic football]. We proved this season that we can fight on two fronts when we stayed in Europe until after Christmas. Then we had a difficult draw against Zenit St Petersburg but we could just as easily have been paired with someone else and gone through.”

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Steven Gerrard’s arrival at Rangers seems certain to spark a circus of transfer stories over the coming months with the new Ibrox manager already linked with a number of players.

The expectation is that Celtic should expect a greater challenge from Rangers but Griffiths has maintained that it is all about what the Parkhead side do themselves.

Brendan Rodgers’ side made history on Saturday by becoming the first ever double treble winners in the country, but the expectation levels continue to grow.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet, what we’ve done; it’s still raw,” said Griffiths. “Everything was perfect at Hampden – we got the job done and I’m sure we’ll celebrate that properly in the days to come.

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“The expectations will be even bigger for us next season as a result of this and you’ve already seen how other teams try to make it difficult for us. They’ll be trying even harder to stop us, especially in the cup competitions.

“Our opponents will be stronger. You see the business Rangers have been doing but Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts will be strong again and Kilmarnock had a great ending to the last campaign so there will be a lot of tough competition for us.

“We’ll add players to our squad as well, of course, so we’ll see who’s coming in and who’s going between now and the start of pre-season training.”

Meanwhile, Griffiths has paid tribute to Scott Brown for the manner in which he took him under his wing when he first arrived at Celtic.

Brown claimed his 16th piece of silverware with the Hoops at the weekend and Griffiths has maintained that there is so much still to come from the Celtic captain.

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“I met Scott before I signed for Celtic, when we were both in Scotland squads and he’s always been brilliant for me,” he said. “I didn’t see him too often in those days but, ever since I’ve been at the club, he’s been like a big brother for me.

“During bad times, he takes me under his wing and he’ll have a quiet word in my ear and, when things go well, he’s very happy for me. I used to cheer him on as a supporter when he played for Hibs, of course – back when he had that red Mohawk!

“But he’s a fantastic talent. He’s 32 now but you can see that he’s capable of playing on for another five or six years.”