Giorgos Giakoumakis put in another underwhelming display despite Celtic making it 19 games unbeaten in the Scottish Premiership.
Ange Postecoglou’s side were in clinical form as they put four past Motherwell on Sunday afternoon. Tom Rogic bagged a brace on his return from injury with Liel Abada and Daizen Maeda scoring either side of that.
The Australian head coach needed goals from elsewhere on the pitch as the Greek striker struggled to have any sort of influence on the match and that was backed up by the fact that he had fewer touches of the ball (31) than goalkeeper Joe Hart (50) and even substitute Nir Bitton (43).
Even Jota, who was on the pitch for a mere 27 minutes after replacing him managed one fewer touch.
He also registered the same attempts on goal (one) and recorded more dribbles (two), making an instant and more positive impact from the bench, as per SofaScore.
The 27-year-old forward has struggled to hit the ground running at Parkhead after joining in the summer from Dutch outfit VVV-Venlo, finding the net just twice across 14 appearances, and he failed to take this rare opportunity to impress his manager.
Elsewhere on the pitch at Fir Park, Giakoumakis made just eight passes, lost possession 11 times from those 31 touches, and won just eight of his 21 duels (38%), via SofaScore.
The 6 foot 1 frontman, therefore, lost the ball once every 5.7 minutes, or once every 2.8 touches, providing to be hugely wasteful as well as ineffective.
Yes, his work rate and attitude is spot on, as seen by the fact that he pulled the defenders away beautifully for the Bhoys’ third goal but ultimately, he’s there to score goals as a striker and he’s just not doing that right now.
Once dubbed a “phenomenon” by journalist Jeroen Kapteijns, we’re yet to see anything of the sort of form from Venlo that caught Ange’s eye in the summer.
It’s easy to see why he’s not the no.1 striker in Glasgow right now.
AND in other news, Forget Rogic: £4.05m-rated Celtic gem who was a “huge problem” stole the show vs ‘Well…