Celtic have been dealt a late fitness concern ahead of their upcoming Europa League clash.
What’s the latest?
In recent comments cited by Jo Hendry, Ange Postecoglou revealed that Georgios Giakoumakis’ knee injury requires further investigation, something which could rule him out of Celtic’s trip to Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday evening.
According to the journalist, the 56-year-old manager said: “Giakoumakis [is set] to have further investigation on a knee issue.”
Fans will be gutted
Considering how impressive Giakoumakis was in the Netherlands last season, the fact that the centre-forward has played so few minutes since his summer switch to Celtic, as well as looking likely to miss out in the crucial Europa League clash with Bayer this evening, is sure to have left fans gutted.
Indeed, despite VVV-Venlo’s relegation from the Dutch top flight last term, the £2.25m-rated man highly impressed over his 30 Eredivisie appearances, scoring 26 goals, registering one assist and creating three big chances for his teammates, in addition to taking an average of 3.2 shots and making 0.5 key passes per game.
These metrics saw the player who journalist Jeroen Kapteijns dubbed a “phenomenon” earn an average SofaScore match rating of 7.35, ranking him not only as his club’s best performer but also as the joint sixth-best player in the division.
As such, once he is fully fit and firing, Giakoumakis would very much appear to be a player who could easily become a pivotal cog in the Celtic attack.
However, with the 26-year-old once again looking unlikely to feature in Germany, fans’ patience regarding the striker’s fitness may be beginning to wear rather thin.
In other news: Ange must unleash “brilliant” £15k-p/w Celtic dynamo vs Bayer, he “always shows up”