The Celtic squad was given the week after the Boxing Day fixture off, however, despite this, Giakoumakis, Jullien, and Forrest all continued to use Lennoxtown’s facilities and treat the break as a mini pre-season.
With a hectic summer, Celtic struggled to bring players to the club in time for pre-season. This resulted in some players being thrown into the squad with little or no preparation. In some cases, players had no pre-season at all.
Speaking to Celtic TV, Postecoglou praised those that decided to come in and work to ensure they were fit for the resumption of the season.
“Yes, that’s the opportunity that exists for Giako now. He’s one of the ones who came in very late in the piece, he didn’t really do a pre-season for us. Didn’t do a pre-season anywhere. Any player would tell you that puts you in behind the 8-ball straight away and then he’s had some setback sin between.
“During the break, we gave the players a week off and he kept coming in and did some really good work with the likes of Christopher Jullien and James Forrest. They almost had a mini pre-season. So this is sort of the beginning for him, and now he gets an opportunity to show people why we did sign him and I thought he did well the other night because he hasn’t played 90 minutes. He looked pretty strong, took his goal well, and I’m sure he’ll improve from that.”
The elite mentality shown by the players will fill fans with confidence as we head into the business end of the season. Having players who are willing to go above and beyond for the club is great to have. Particularly in Giakoumakis’ case, life at Celtic hasn’t gone as he would have planned but he is showing a willingness to turn things around, his actions should reap rewards on the pitch, hopefully.
