Celtic striker Giorgos Giakoumakis continued his red-hot goalscoring form yesterday as Celtic dismantled a Ross County team who many predicted would prove a tough test after putting in good performances against both Celtic and theRangers this season.
The Greek scored yet another hat-trick, his second in a row at Parkhead as he created his own piece of Celtic history. Not only did he bag three goals but he also provided the assist for Daizen Maeda’s goal, meaning he had a hand in all 4 goals scored on the day.
The Celtic striker, who now has 12 goals so far this season, told Celtic TV:
“I am really happy with my hat-trick, and of course the most important thing was that we won one more game.We are getting closer to our target so congratulations to my team-mates.
“We played a very good game, we played our game, even when we scored three goals and they had 10 players on the field, we didn’t stop. We played our game and our style of play and I can say it was a complete game for us.”
Giakoumakis, who now heads off on international duty with Greece, was happy that first choice penalty taker Josip Juranovic handed him the ball to allow him the chance to send opposition keeper Ross Laidlaw the wrong way for his hat-trick.
“He was supposed to shoot the penalty but he gave me the ball and I scored a hat-trick and we celebrated together. It was something really nice.”
It was a nice touch by Croatian international Juranovic to step aside and allow his teammate to complete his treble. It really shows how strong the camaraderie is in this current Celtic squad, which is fantastic to see after what looked a tumultuous atmosphere within the team as we struggled through last season.
Giakoumakis’ current form at Celtic has not only piqued the interest of current Greece manager Gus Poyet, his goalscoring exploits have also saw football fans in his home country beginning to call for the former VVV-Venlo player to get minutes on the pitch, perhaps linking up with Vangelis Pavlidis, the AZ Alkmaar striker who is currently the main attacking threat in the Greek squad.
As I mentioned in my match report following the game yesterday, Giakoumakis offers something to Celtic that has been missing for a long time. He is a proper poacher, someone who seems to constantly get chances throughout the game, always in the right place at the right time. This is especially crucial when playing against the more defensive minded teams in the league where we always seemed to have bagfuls of endeavour but often lacked someone with that predatory instinct to nick a vital goal.
Not only does he have that poacher mentality but he also offers a unique option up front that is sorely lacking throughout our squad, someone with height and physicality that can handle the rough and tumble dished out by most centre backs in the Scottish Premiership. As he battled ferociously with Jack Baldwin and Alex Iacovitti yesterday, two big and strong defenders, my mind wandered as I tried to recall the last forward we had who was able to outmuscle those types of players. No recent players came to mind.
When Kyogo returns I have absolutely no doubt he will quickly regain his status as Celtic’s most valuable attacker, but having Giakoumakis up to speed now and in top form just provides another option for Ange Postecoglou to utilise dependant on how he sees the game panning out.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only fan who is excited about the thought of going with the pair of them up front in certain games in the future, the movement of Kyogo mixed with the physicality of Giakoumakis may be the closest we will ever get to reliving the glory days when Larsson and Sutton used to drive fear into the heart of defences throughout Scotland.
With Kyogo due to return in the not to distant future, Ange Postecoglou must be rubbing his hands imagining the firepower he will have at his disposal. Everyone of them will have a huge part to play during the remainder of this season.
Conall McGinty
