Celtic striker Giorgos Giakoumakis has absolutely ripped into Barry Ferguson’s Alloa after his experience with the League One club on Saturday.
Alloa took an extremely physical approach against the Hoops in a bid to cause a Scottish Cup shock. This led to a serious facial injury to Callum McGregor whilst Yosuke Ideguchi and Liel Abada also had to come off with knocks at differing stages.
Giakoumakis scored 1 of 2 goals that would ultimately prove to be enough to see the Hoops through. Abada notched the other in the 2-1 success, with Connor Sammon scoring late on to set up a nervy finish.
But the main talking points post-match was the injury concerns to the Celtic players. And Alloa’s approach clearly left Giakoumakis unimpressed.
As quoted by the Daily Record, the Greek forward said: “First of all I have to wish him (McGregor) the best of luck for a speedy recovery. He’s a leader for us. Maybe it’s something serious. We’ll miss him a lot, he’s a key player for us and I hope he will return as soon as possible.
“The game against Alloa was out of (over) the limit. It was too dangerous – the duels, the marking. We had to get through it and take the win and, if it was possible, to stay away from harm. We didn’t achieve that part.
“I can say that the opponent didn’t have the quality that we do. That’s normal, with respect. They had to try to run more than us and be more aggressive in the duels. Sometimes they crossed the line and the marking was a little bit more tough. But we should take care of ourselves too.”
Giorgos Giakoumakis showing some fire; calls out Alloa for Celtic tactics
You’ve got to enjoy this as a Celtic supporter. Not because it’s a Hoops player having a go at a Barry Ferguson team. But because he’s standing up for his teammate. He feels Alloa’s approach led to McGregor’s facial injury and he clearly isn’t happy about it.
It’s promising that we have that team unity inside the Celtic dressing room. Positive that the players care for each other and look out for one another. That’s the kind of family feel Ange Postecoglou has been trying to instill all season.
Of course, Giakoumakis is absolutely spot-on. He’s correct to call out the aggressive approach given it could’ve led to some very serious knocks throughout the 90 minutes.
For example, we could very easily have watched Ideguchi pick up an extremely serious ankle injury from the challenge of Muhamed Niang. There’s no denying that was a close call and he’s extremely fortunate to have gotten away with it.
It was disappointing that there were no words wishing the injured Celtic stars well from the Alloa camp either. A classy message of support in hoping that their injuries weren’t serious would’ve been a nice move. Instead, all we’ve heard from them is that they had us on the ropes and all the rest of it.
Hopefully, we have Ideguchi and Abada available for Tynecastle regardless. McGregor’s injury, however? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see whilst preparing for the worst.
In other news, Aberdeen supporters happy to take Celtic winger Mikey Johnston on one condition
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