Giorgos Giakoumakis has turned his Celtic career around in impressive fashion since the turn of the year. After struggling with both form and fitness in the first half of the campaign, a lot of people had written the Greek striker off as a transfer mistake on the part of the Hoops. But, since the return from the winter break, he has looked like a completely different player and a difference maker.

Giakoumakis has been a consistent source of goals for Celtic over these past few months, especially in the absence of Kyogo Furuhashi, who has not made a single appearance this year and has been out with injury since December.

Earlier on in the season, Giakoumakis had made some comments about Celtic being better than the Rangers, which Ryan Jack had found ‘disrespectful’. Now, the Greek striker has cleared things up.

As reported by The Scottish Sun, speaking about his earlier comments, Giakoumakis said:

“I didn’t make these comments to make anyone angry or feel disrespected by me.

“I said what I was believing for my team.

“I believe this time that we played better as a team, that is the only thing I said.

“I can say also now that we play very good football and I believe in my team.

“Every player can say that his team is the best, I don’t think this is bad.”

Celtic’s Giakoumakis gives brilliant reply to Rangers’ Jack

It is safe to say that Giakoumakis’ comments came from a position of confidence and not one of arrogance. And there is plenty of reason to be confident as well.

After a rough start to the season, Celtic have turned it around and done a brilliant job. They are currently leading the Premiership title race by six points, with just six more league games to go. On top of that, they have already won the Scottish League Cup and are in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup as well. Things are certainly looking up for a team, who had finished 25 points behind the Rangers last season.

Individually, Giakoumakis has enjoyed quite a turnaround in fortunes as well. He already has a couple of hattricks for Celtic to his name and is starting to show why he topped the Eredivisie scoring charts last season.

This article was originally posted here