LEIGH GRIFFITHS, the Celtic striker, believes the Parkhead club proved the doubters wrong who said they would falter against former Champions League side Astana.

The club from Kazakhstan enjoyed a stunning debut in Europe’s top club competition last campaign, recording two draws with Galatasaray, once with Benfica and one with eventual finalists Atletico Madrid before bowing out at the group stage.

Despite that impressive run, Celtic more than held their own on Tuesday night, particularly in the second half as they returned to Glasgow with a 1-1 stalemate and a potentially invaluable away goal courtesy of a second-half Griffiths strike.

Given Astana’s recent pedigree and the money invested in their squad, there were fears that a Parkhead side so early in their own season would struggle after a long and tiresome journey. Griffiths was happy to prove otherwise.

“Everybody said this team was in the Champions League last season and they would be too strong and good for us, but we showed that we can cope with that and on any given day we are a match for anybody,” he said.

“We knew that they would have a lot of pressure and they scored from a set-piece, which was poor from our point of view, but we kept our head down and kept working hard and deserved our away goal.

“They didn’t create many clear-cut chances - they had a lot of corners, a lot of long throw-ins, but apart from that, Craig Gordon hasn’t had much to do. I think next week we'll definitely finish the game off.”

While Griffiths is already relishing the prospect of getting the job completed at Parkhead next week, Astana were still busy complaining about the Scotland international in the wake of Tuesday’s first leg.

The Kazakhstan outfit took to their official Twitter account to post a clip of the forward clashing with Igor Shitov. The Tweet translates to 'Griffiths punches Shitov in the match' and the footage shows the Hoops forward appearing to push the Belarus international defender to the ground inside the penalty box during the first leg of their Champions League third qualifying round at the Astana Arena.

On top of this, quotes from head coach Stanimir Stoilov claim Griffiths should have been red carded for the offence that Italian referee Paolo Mazzoleni saw as a booking.

“We have watched this moment with multi-angle,” he said, “and in this episode the game was clearly visible, the more the referee was close. In our opinion, this episode clearly deserved the removal of the Celtic player.”

After the game, Griffiths pleaded his innocence by saying: "There was a bit of handbags and one of their men went down. Both of us could have been booked to be honest.

"The ref could have let it go but I was the one who got booked. But I managed to silence the crowd a few minutes later so it worked out fine."