Charlie Nicholas is a big admirer of Celtic’s hat-trick hero from the weekend, Giorgos Giakoumakis and reckons that the Celtic striker should follow up last season’s top goalscorer in the Eredivisie with the same accolade in the Scottish Premiership, despite missing nearly all of the first half of the season through injury.
The former Celtic, Arsenal and Aberdeen striker has been looking at the numbers and reckons that the powerful Greek striker has plenty of goals in him as the season gets to the business end when titles can be won or lost. And a decent goalscoring haul from Giakoumakis could swing the title in Celtic’s direction, with Nicholas offering his percentage chances for both contenders coming out on top after taking the weekend results into consideration.
Writing in his regular Tuesday column in Scottish Daily Express certainly is more enthusiastic than usual about a Celtic player as he talks up Giorgos Giakoumakis after watching him score a wonderful hat-trick on Sunday against Matt McGhee’s new charges after earlier in the day Dundee United picked up a point against theRangers.
That leaves Celtic not six points behind as was the case coming out of the winter break but now three points out in front with a perfect start to domestic football in 2022. In contract theRangers had dropped points in all four of their away games this year with draws at Ross County, Aberdeen and Dundee United and a heavy defeat at Celtic Park.
Here’s how highly Nicholas rates Giakoumakis. “Giorgos Giakoumakis is hitting form and the Celtic striker should have the Premiership’s top goalscorer award in his sights. Giakoumakis is six behind joint leaders Alfredo Morelos and Regan Charles-Cook, who are on 11 goals, but the Greek can overtake both if he continues to play with the same confidence he did last weekend.
“He got a good hat-trick against Dundee and you can see he also tries to bring his team-mates into play with his link-up work. Celtic’s wide men are the key. When they get on the ball that is when Giakoumakis comes to life.
“Despite his stature and physical presence he doesn’t play like a typical big target man. He’s not the new John Hartson. Giakoumakis looks for goals by putting his body on the line and going in where it hurts, often nipping in ahead of defenders at the front post, which is something of a dying art.
“I like a lot of what he does. It will be interesting to see Postecoglou puts Kyogo Furuhashi straight back into the starting line-up when the Japanese striker is fit. My only concern about Giakoumakis is that he does take some heavy knocks and picks up injuries,” Nicholas stated.
On the swing in Celtic’s favour, Nicholas reckons Celtic are now the favourites but notes that the games post-European action could have an impact, but he while he sees theRangers getting through their second leg tie against Dortmund he reckons that Celtic will be knocked out of the Europa Conference League on Thursday night. The still leaves the tricky trip to Eater Road after the tough challenge of playing in the Arctic Circle but after than Celtic’s focus would be on domestic matters while, if Nicholas is correct, theRangers would have a least two further tough Europa League matches in the round of 16.
“The win over Dundee coupled with (the)Rangers’ draw at Tannadice means Celtic ended the weekend with a three-point cushion at the top of the table, not to mention a superior goal difference over their Old Firm (sic) rivals. I would put the title race at 55/45 in favour of Postecoglou’s side.
“Celtic are in a good place but things could change again very quickly. On another day (the)Rangers would have been out of sight against Dundee United given the amount of chances they created. In contrast to last week, Celtic will be the ones flying back from a long European trip on Thursday night, whereas Rangers will play their second leg in Glasgow.
“It’ll be like that while both sides are competing on the continent, but I can see Celtic’s Europa Conference League journey coming to an end this week. The Hoops need to overturn a 3-1 deficit against Bodo/Glimt away from home, but the Norwegian champions appear to have too much pace and movement in the front areas.
“(the)Rangers got a great 4-2 win against Borussia Dortmund in Germany but this tie is not over. Star striker Erling Haaland, above, will be back after injury and the Germans will cause a bit of panic if they score first at Ibrox. (the)Rangers’ European reputation is strong, though, and I think they will sneak into the last 16 of the Europa League.”
