Very difficult six months- Celtic new bhoy reflects on his incredible turnaround

Giorgos Giakoumakis has reflected on his debut Celtic season after what he describes as a really difficult six months. 

Twelve months ago the striker was contemplating his future after a bizarre season in Holland where he finished as the top scorer in the Eredivisie with 26 goals despite his club, VVV Venlo being relegated. 

With a chequered CV that covered a couple of Greek clubs and a season on loan in Poland at Gornik Zabrze it looked like the striker would be on the move again. 

Giakoumakis never played in the second tier for Venlo but on the final day of the transfer window he moved to Celtic but failed to get off to a flying start. 

Playing catch up with fitness he was listed as a substitute against Raith Rovers on September 23 but an injury in the warm up put his Celtic debut back a week before he made a late appearance in the 4-0 home defeat from Bayer Leverkusen. 

One goal, further injury issues and a missed penalty didn’t hold out much promise of Giakoumakis pushing Kyogo Furuhashi but as the season ended there were good cases being put forward for both men as Celtic’s first choice striker. 

Reflecting on his first season with Celtic and where his game was a year ago, Giakoumakis told The Sun: 

When you are doing such a thing as scoring that amount of goals and your team gets relegated then it’s not normal to score 26 goals. Last season I went home in the summer to spend my holidays and I was not happy. 

I was top scorer in the league and I knew I would probably have a transfer — but I wasn’t happy. So this year I’m top scorer with goals that helped to win the title.  Now I feel that this is complete and I wish to do it again next year. 

I am proud because I had a really difficult first six months. The first part of the season was not what I expected. I had an injury. I had a lack of pre-season and so I didn’t play that much. 

To end as the top scorer in the league is something really important for me. I’m really happy with that and I wish we had ten minutes more because I don’t like to share! 

I need to be healthy. Whenever we start the season I always pray to God to be healthy so I can be fit and be myself. If I can be myself I can score a lot of goals and help the team. 

I’ve never had a particular number in mind. Every single game, whether I start or not, I want to score. That’s my target. I hope that next season I can score many more than I did this year. 

With his future secured and a proper pre-season to look forward to there is every reason to expect Giakoumakis to hit the ground running when Celtic open their defence of the SPFL Premiership. 

Greece won’t be playing at the World Cup Finals which will give the striker a five week break before the domestic season resumes the week before Christmas. 

Giakoumakis scored once before Christmas, after the winter break he netted 16 times to drive Celtic to the title including the clinching goal away to Dundee United in the second last match.

CLICK HERE for his season stats.