There is a healthy but competitive rivalry emerging in the Celtic dressing room this season and it can only benefit Celtic as we look to defend our Scottish Premiership title and make a dent in the Champions League.
After Kyogo recently went public on his goalscoring targets for the season, now Giorgos Giakoumakis, as reported in Daily Record, has set his sights on standing alone at the top of the scoring charts, after sharing the award last season with former Ross County attacker Regan-Charles Cook.
Except shared or not, is appears our Greek striker has yet to get his hands on his trophy.
“First of all, I’m still waiting for my trophy. Where’s my trophy? Maybe they lost it, I don’t know! We will see. It suits the strikers who have better chances to score.
“That’s one of my main targets this year – to score as many as possible. Why not be the top scorer in the league? Alone.”
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And domestic dominance is not Giakoumakis’ only target this season. Instead, the player who wasn’t backward about coming forward when it came to the destination of the league title last season, wonderfully putting a few noses in the Ibrox changing room out of joint at the same time, now intends to take his scoring form into Champions League football.
“I will always try to make an impact whatever I play in. I try to change my level, I try to push myself, to improve myself a lot. The Champions League is something amazing, the best league that a player can play in within the European game. It makes me feel like we are at the top level.”
Last season saw a slow start to Giakoumakis’ time with Celtic. Much of that was down to arriving at the club late as Celtic sought to ensure wantaway players like Odsonne Edouard and Ryan Christie had left the building before committing to further incomings. But it had a detrimental impact on Giakoumakis who missed out on pre-season training last time around.
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And after admitting to fitness struggles at the start of 21/22, the chance of a full pre-season schedule this time around will only benefit him as he tries to improve on an impressive second half of last season.
“Last year, I struggled a lot at first. I had almost three pre-seasons, or four, I can’t remember. It was a season when I was struggling a lot but I was fighting with my heart.
“You must have a good pre-season, a hard pre-season, in order to help you during the season that is coming. This year is going to be better. I try to improve and push a lot.”
Giorgos Giakoumakis has been in impressive form already during pre-season and his goal on Wednesday evening against Banik Ostrava was the finish of an elite striker.
If he enters the season in that sort of form, and avoids the interrupted season he had last time out, there is no reason why Giakoumakis won’t be topping the Scottish Premiership scoring charts next May, although a certain Japanese teammate already looks to be up for the challenge too.
That will be quite the battle to see play out over the coming weeks and months. And if it so happens both end the season on level pegging, perhaps the sponsors could at least ensure they both get their hands on the trophy this time around. It appears Giorgos hasn’t forgotten what he’s owed!
Niall J
