Celtic’s draw with Atletico Madrid in last night’s crucial Champions League match showed Brendan Rodgers’ side has what it takes to mix with Europe’s elite.
Atletico are probably one of Europe’s most in-form teams and Celtic really stretched them throughout the whole 95 minutes.
Rodgers’ men were pegged back after taking the lead twice and, ultimately, just lacked that final piece of quality to get them over the line and the three points that many would argue that they deserved.
And Chris Sutton believes Celtic miss a man who could possibly have offered that last night.
Sutton posted on social media channel X [formerly Twitter], “We shouldn’t look back but I miss Giorgos Giakoumakis and so do Celtic…”
Giorgos Giakoumakis is a huge loss for Celtic
Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing. The Greek striker was immense for the Hoops under Ange Postecoglou.
Giakoumakis finished his first season at Celtic. 13 SPFL goals in 29 appearances was a great return considering most of his outings were from the bench.
The Greece international then followed that up with another eight goals the following season but playing second fiddle to Kyogo Furuhashi wasn’t working for Giakoumakis.
He moved on in January of this year when Celtic sold him to Atlanta United for £4.3m [Sky Sports] where Giakoumakis is now the main man and scoring for fun.
I had written a piece a few weeks ago where I stated that I believed Celtic made a huge mistake in letting Giakoumakis leave.
Hyeongyu Oh is not getting the minutes he needs and when an opportunity does arise, he doesn’t seem to be able to make an impact.
And that’s the difference between the Korean and the 28-year-old MLS striker. Every time Giakoumakis was brought on you felt he could score. That same feeling doesn’t ring true with Oh and that’s where the Greek forward could have made a difference for Celtic last night.
I thought it was very telling that Oh didn’t make an appearance last night when Celtic were chasing a goal and Atletico were down to ten men. I’ll speak about that later.
But for now, Sutton and I may well be correct. Celtic do miss Giakoumakis and last night really hammered that home.
In other news, Brendan Rodgers thinks 25-year-old Celtic player has picked up a hamstring injury vs Atletico