Leigh Griffiths’ desire the key factor in move to Hibs

Colin Calderwood hopes to unleash Leigh Griffiths in tomorrow’s Edinburgh derby after revealing the striker’s love for Hibs had helped seal a five-month loan spell with his boyhood heroes.

The Easter Road outfit were last night hoping to complete the formalities of Griffiths’ temporary switch from English Premier League side Wolves in time for the 21-year-old to feature at Tynecastle.

The former Livingston youngster’s return north of the Border, just seven months after his £150,000 move from Dundee, marked a productive 24 hours for Calderwood, with Richie Towell having joined on a season-long loan from Celtic on Thursday.

Whilst Towell is seen as the answer to the side’s problem right-back slot, the capture of Griffiths, who was also wanted by Aberdeen, is likely to excite supporters more.

And it is the Scotland under-21 internationalist’s enthusiasm as a fan himself that helped persuade Wolves manager Mick McCarthy to allow Griffiths to knock back loan moves in England in favour of the chance to play for his beloved Hibs.

“An agreement has been reached and we are in the process of doing the medical and the international transfer,” said Calderwood yesterday. “It will get done but can we get it done by Sunday? That’s what we are working through at the moment. I’m very hopeful that it will get concluded. Leigh being a diehard Hibs supporter really had a big part to play in him coming back.

“He had one or two opportunities to go on loan in England, and Mick expressed it might have been quite good for him to stay in England. But it was Leigh’s desire to come and play back in Scotland, and especially for Hibs when he knew we had an interest. He has pushed Mick and said ‘I really want to go there’.”

Although all of his up-front options are in varying stages of readiness, Griffiths’ arrival has presented Calderwood with a different striking problem to the one he had just a matter of weeks ago.

Garry O’Connor, who has netted four times in four games, may still be the only fully-fit forward, with on-loan youngster Phil Airey having returned to Newcastle for treatment on a groin problem, but Akpo Sodje’s return from injury and improvements in Junior Agogo’s thigh strain this week, as well as the addition of Griffiths, augurs well for the future.

“It adds strength and depth to an area where we have been very, very light,” Calderwood added. “In essence, we still only have one fit striker. But Akpo regularly scores and Garry O’Connor is scoring at the minute.

“I believe Junior will be a goalscorer once he gets started and Leigh Griffiths has proved in Scotland before that he can score and I’m sure he’ll prove it in the SPL. There is no real settling-in period for him, apart from coming to a new club, because he knows the area and the club.”

Understandably, given the line-ups fielded by both teams and the nature of the game, Calderwood insisted he would not be reading too much into the goalless draw eked out by city rivals Hearts in the second leg of their Europa League play-off with his former club, Tottenham Hotspur, on Thursday night.

However, goalkeeper Graham Stack admits the improvement in result from the 5-0 first-leg hammering in Edinburgh will have boosted morale amongst Hibs’ opponents ahead of tomorrow’s 3.45pm kick-off.

It is a meeting that Stack is relishing after being restricted by injury to just two capital derbies in his two years at the club. The 29-year-old counts a 1-0 Championship win for Millwall over London enemies West Ham in 2004 as a derby memory he will forever cherish, but he revealed he has reasons closer to home to crave a first victory at Tynecastle tomorrow.

“I don’t live too far from the Hearts stadium,” he explained. “I live down in Murrayfield and so I’m not a million miles from where they’re based and I come across a lot of Hearts supporters in my social life and just in and around town.

“Some of them are brilliant, but there’s always some that have to take it over the line. In fairness, I’ve been in the game long enough to know that once people have had one or two beers on a match-day, and there’s one or two things they’re not happy about, then they’ll voice their opinion.

“As a player, you’ve got to be professional and wise, just to let it go in one ear and out the other. It certainly doesn’t affect you on the day. It’s just part and parcel of the game.

“If it wasn’t for people going to a derby on match-day and singing their hearts out and, I suppose, shouting one or two obscenities at players, then it wouldn’t quite be a derby – it would be quite a boring derby, in fairness.

“So, that’s all part and parcel of it and it’s something I look forward to. You want to prove people wrong and it’s nice after a derby, when you do come in contact with those Hearts supporters that you know, that you can have a bit of banter.”