How Giorgos Giakoumakis should be remembered at Celtic

Giakoumakis had become something of a cult hero. Awkward of gait but with the penalty box instincts of a scorpion, the robust Greek had finished the championship-winning 2021-22 season as joint SPFL Premiership top scorer.

This seemed unlikely upon viewing his rather eccentric techniques for the first time. His first chance at glory was spurned; a last-minute penalty at home to Livingston to secure a win was weakly hit. Did he have the mentality to succeed at a club as demanding as Celtic?

A knee injury in November 2021 after an initial period of one goal in eight appearances meant many were scratching their heads and wondering if this was going to be another misfit in the recent history of Celtic strikers.

The names Teemu Pukki, Stefan Scepovic, Nadir Ciftci, Colin Kazim-Richards, Carlton Cole, Vakoun Bayo, Amido Balde and Patrik Klimala all resonated and many wondered if Giakoumakis was be added to that roll call of shame.

Then, when Kyogo Furuhashi was pushed too far and his hamstring gave out, Celtic were behind in the league and the title was hoped for rather than expected.

Giakoumakis returned from injury after the January break and a well-taken goal against Alloa Athletic enlightened a characteristically awkward personal performance.

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In the next away game he displayed admirable athleticism, timing and strength to turn in a volley away to Hearts. Maybe Celtic were on to something?

Fifteen goals in 21 appearances followed as the title was won with relative comfort in the end. What a turnaround it was.

The current season started with Furuhashi restored to full health and manager Ange Postecoglou avowedly sticking to a one-striker system. Giakoumakis would get plenty of minutes against tired defences but it was the Japanese that was the star man.

Additionally, stories emerged that his agent was agitating, that he wanted or was promised more money, needed more game-time and that there might be a better offer out there given the successful six months of the previous season on the back of being Eredivisie top scorer with VVV Venlo. At 28, and with two children under two, it is perhaps natural if Giakoumakis considered what was best for himself and his family.

Whatever went on, Postecoglou seems to take a binary view of player loyalty; you are either in, and I mean all in, or you are out (and I mean out, mate).

There was to be no walking back and eventually the Greek’s footballing adventure took him to Georgia, USA.

However, the data is no respecter of cult status. So, objectively, how should we remember Giakoumakis?

Goals

A tally of 26 goals in 52 appearances sounds impressive – and it is – but more precisely we need to look at the number of minutes actually played to ascertain the goals he offered per 90 minutes.

Almost one goal per completed match is mighty. Indeed, it is the best rate of scoring among strikers since I started my blog, Celtic By Numbers, in the 2014-15 season.

Over his full Celtic career, Henrik Larsson managed an average of 0.8 goals per 90 minutes. Both Furuhashi and Giakoumakis eclipse that average so far.

Shall we declare the Greek the greatest? There is more to it than that, as you’d expect.

Expected goals (xG)

Note that not all the charts will have the same players as it depends on what data is available for which season.

Giakoumakis has the highest non-penalty xG, also by some distance. As an aside – it will be interesting to see if Furuhashi can maintain a goal rate so far above his expected goals. You can see that Odsonne Edouard generally scored as expected over what was a much longer Celtic career.

Impressive again, though, from the big Greek lad. So – all hail the new king?

Chances created

How about creating chances for others though?

Here, we plot the number of chances created with the average expected assist rate per 90 minutes.

In this arena the current strikers are well behind the previous incumbents as regards both chance creation quantity and quality.

Leigh Griffiths’s numbers are inflated through taking corners and free-kicks but he remained a valuable all-round forward, as did Moussa Dembele and Edouard.

There may, however, be another theme emerging here regarding team style and manager expectations. Hold that thought…

Defending

The following is the framework to evaluate central defenders. It is concerned with defensive actions only (so no shot or passing data).

In this, we see broadly three camps:

* Bottom left are Edouard and Griffiths, for whom pressing and tackling back were probably not strong suits

* In the middle we have the willing workers in Dembele and Oliver Burke, the latter of whom was schooled in the arts of pressing at RB Leipzig

* At the top right we have the current (or in Giakoumakis’s case, most recent) strikers. Both he and Kyogo have noticeably more defensive action success and win the ball back more. Indeed, Giakoumakis eclipses even the perpetual motion of his former team-mate in this

But once again, what are the impacts of team style? Celtic have not historically pressed as hard or high as the current team does. Maybe they did it a little more under Brendan Rodgers but this was not a feature under Ronny Deila or Neil Lennon – and certainly never to this extent.

Possession events

Sometimes you just have to count how much stuff someone does.

Below is the average number of possession events each player is involved in on average per 90 minutes.

It would be prudent to ignore Ciftci being the most ‘involved’. I suspect this is counting the number of touches he needed to bring the ball under control. (Bitchy! – Ed. Yes! – me)

In recent times, Celtic have had more generalist, all-purpose forwards. Their roles would involve linking the play and perhaps coming wide or dropping deep to connect to wingers and attacking midfielders.

Both Giakoumakis and Furuhashi (both hilariously more involved than the spectacularly feckless Albian Ajeti) are significantly less involved in the game than strikers of recent yore.

That is not to say they are lazy or redundant though. Go back to the defensive data and see the off-the-ball work that goes into this role.

So, about Giakoumakis…

I could go on but I wanted to hand pick some obvious data points by way of trying to establish whether as far as the data is concerned, will we consider Giakoumakis a success (and, therefore, will he be missed)?

What the data shows is that, in all categories, Furuhashi and Giakoumakis profile almost identically.

What does this mean? It means that the system of play and the role the manager asks of his strikers is of overriding importance and will actually skew the data accordingly.

Postecoglou does not want all-round Edouard types to drift around, run from deep, feed in midfielders, sometimes play winger, take pot-shots from distance and not worry too much about tracking back when the ball is lost.

No, he wants his strikers to defend from the front as a starter. Then, when the ball is won, to get into the box in between the posts and make runs there in expectation of low, hard crosses and cut-backs coming their way. If they deflect the ball into someone’s path for an assist then hooray – but that’s not your primary job, mate.

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None of this is to damn Giakoumakis with faint praise or to imply that he has a limited skillset honed for a particular role in a very specific system).

But he kind of does – and it then becomes a matter of excellent recruitment to find a player like him, that would struggle to be a target man or a link striker or to operate as a pseudo number 10 like Edouard, and see him thrive.

Giakoumakis succeeded because his quite narrow skillset was perfect for the style of football Celtic currently play.

His scoring record is brilliant and in a way eclipses Larsson’s. Does that make him a better footballer? No. But he is a very good specialist recruited to do precisely the job his skills suggest he is good at. He did that well (and of course Larsson would star for any team at any level in any role).

Yet if Celtic continue to work closely with Postecgolou and recruit as wisely as they have done in recent times, then there should be a degree of confidence that they will find a similarly round peg for the round hole he leaves in the forward line.

Farewell, good luck and thanks for the goals, Giorgos.