New Celtic summer arrival Giorgos Giakoumakis “made headlines all over the world” last season according to VVV-Venlo Director of Football Stan Valckx.
Giakoumakis signed for the Hoops with a big reputation after ending last season as the Eredivisie’s top scorer. It was even more impressive considering he managed to do it with a club that would end up facing relegation.
It’s been a slow burner for the Greek striker since then however. He’s yet to get up to speed fitness-wise at Parkhead after he wasn’t involved in Venlo’s pre-season. Despite being in Glasgow for nearly two months, he’s yet to start a single game.
But PSV great Valckx believes the player will come good as he bigged up the talent he showed in the Netherlands last year.
As quoted by the Evening Times, Valckx said: “Before I went to Poland to watch him in the flesh I had seen a few of his games on WyScout, and I saw that he never gives up. He keeps running, he keeps fighting. He does very well in the box, he doesn’t need that many chances, but I didn’t see that immediately in the game in Poland. What was clear was his character.
“Just before half-time he got an elbow in the face and I saw the blood coming out of his head. I thought that there was no way he would be out for the second half, and now I wouldn’t be able to meet him the day after. I didn’t think he would show up, but he did.
“We hoped we would get what I saw in that game, but nobody at all expected the volume of goals he scored. At a small club like Venlo in the Eredivisie, a striker needs to defend maybe even more than he attacks, so that he scored that number of goals is really an unbelievable story. He made headlines all over the world.”
Celtic still waiting to see Giorgos Giakoumakis’ breakthrough moment
There has undoubtedly been plenty of excitement when it comes to Giakoumakis. After all, coming to Parkhead as the top scorer in Holland, you’re always going to have expectation attached to you.
But the novelty is starting to wear off. The fact we haven’t seen him in action anywhere near enough as of yet is beginning to frustrate supporters. It’s a trend that can’t continue when Celtic travel to Fir Park to face Motherwell on Saturday.
Given his reputation, Giakoumakis should be battering the door down for game-time at Celtic. So far, however, the talk around him has consistently been about building up his fitness levels.
That he managed a cameo against Bayer Leverkusen was of course a good sign. That suggested to supporters that he isn’t as far away from regular action as it seemed. Granted, being snubbed for Albian Ajeti at Pittodrie in our last match was an eyebrow-raiser.
Even now Giakoumakis still has former colleagues coming out and talking up his quality. But it just makes it all the more frustrating that we haven’t managed to see it for ourselves.
Hopefully, that all changes come the end of the international break.
In other news, Steve Lomas thinks Zander Clark is better than anything at Celtic
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