IT seems Leigh Griffiths performs better when he has something to prove. Witness, for example, the upturn in the Celtic striker’s form since the apparent ‘kick in the teeth’ of finding out Steven Naismith would start up front for Scotland ahead of him in next week’s match against Israel.

That is why Celtic supporters and followers of the national side may not want the forward to hear that there seems to have been something of a misunderstanding.

Scotland head coach Alex McLeish moved yesterday though to clear up Griffiths’ apparent misconception over the solidity of Naismith’s place in the starting eleven after his goal against Albania last month, claiming that the striker’s jersey is very much still up for grabs.

And with both Naismith and Griffiths now in red-hot form on the domestic front, McLeish is enjoying the headache of choosing between the pair.

“I think that you’ve always got to prove yourself,” said McLeish as he announced his 23-man squad for the trip to Haifa next week and the following Sunday’s friendly against Portugal at Hampden.

“I didn’t say to anybody after the last international ‘You’ll definitely be playing in the next game’. You give yourself a chance and that’s all you can ask for.

“What I saw in Leigh’s final sentence was ‘It is up to prove that we’re good enough’, and then he goes out and bangs in three goals [for Celtic].

“That’s great, that’s the kind of positivity we’re looking for and the type of reaction. We want to see that kind of Scottish mentality coming to the fore.

“I’ve never had a long conversation with Leigh from the point of view of trying to get into his mindset, but he knows where the net is.

“Leigh wasn’t getting chosen by Gordon (Strachan) for a while, then all of a sudden, he was in a rich vein of form for Celtic and Gordon called him up.

“He got two great goals against England and scored one or two others, and something the Scottish public has been craving for years is a top striker, a top goalscorer.”

McLeish joked that Griffiths had blanked a phonecall from him in the aftermath of making his comments, but the national coach has certainly not been blanking the striker’s recent goalscoring form.

And he was also intrigued by his manager at club level, Brendan Rodgers, airing his views publicly on what he feels Griffiths could improve upon outside of the obvious goal threat he has always possessed.

“It was interesting,” he said. “It’s always good for me to get information regardless of whether it is negative or positive. If it is constructive information then it’s something I’ll absorb.

“I see all the boys in training every day, and you get a feel for some things. You might think ‘would he be better against him?’ or ‘would he be better in this position’. He might be able to drop off deeper in the striking position.

“There’s a lot of things we analyse and you choose the team for each game as it comes along.

“I haven’t spoken to Leigh since the last game. I tried to call him, but he blanked me. I’ll see him when he comes here.”

Suddenly, after a fallow period for Scotland in the striking department, McLeish seems to have genuine options up front, with Swansea City’s Oli McBurnie and Sporting Kansas City’s Johnny Russell joining Griffiths and Naismith in the squad.

“Every time I’ve spoken to you guys you have been asking where the goals are going to come from,” McLeish said.

“Now, I’m not saying that because they are scoring for their clubs they are going to score hundreds of goals for Scotland. I hope they do. But certainly, it can’t be bad that McBurnie before the last squad was in goalscoring form and came back on Saturday and made a couple of goals. Naisy has been in great form, and Leigh has hit back with three goals and started in the Celtic team in the last four games. It’s nice to see him taking up that challenge.”

McLeish is hoping that the Scots can put themselves in a strong position to qualify from their UEFA Nations League group by following up their opening day win over Albania against an Israel side in transition.

“It’s never easy to go away from home but we go with a bit of confidence from the Albania game,” he said. “We want be as positive as we can be away from home. I’m not saying we open ourselves up but we want to still play at a tempo that we feel this group of players can give us.

“They looked as if they were a team in transition [in their last game against Northern Ireland] and they are a wee bit. It wasn’t a terrible performance by them. There were some parts of it that they will look to try to improve upon but we want to go away from home and be a big threat to anybody that we play.”