Opinion: Celtic star's amazing turnaround has seen him become a cult hero

Celtic striker Giorgos Giakoumakis has had an incredible second-half of the season. The forward, who had scored once for the Hoops in 2021, added a superb 16 goals in the second-half of the season, to end the 2021/22 campaign with 17 goals for the Bhoys, which is a great return.

What is perhaps even more impressive is that the forward has ended the season as joint top scorer in the Premiership. In total, he scored 13 goals in the league, with two coming in the 6-0 win over Motherwell on the final day of the season.

Giakoumakis and Ross County’s Regan Charles-Cook both ended the season scoring 13 goals in the Premiership, but the Celtic man had a superb minutes per goal ratio of 81 minutes, which is a remarkable statistic for a striker. That was the best ratio of any player in the league this season.

It has been some turnaround for the 27-year-old, when you consider how poorly the first-half of the season went for the player. He had a lot of fitness issues, missed a penalty against Livingston, and generally looked to be a player that was going to struggle for the Hoops.

However, he has been a player reborn in the second-half of the season, and is now a cult hero for the Celtic support.

One good thing about Giakoumakis is that he seems to score goals in clusters, with hat-tricks against Dundee and Ross County, and doubles against Motherwell and Dundee United. 

Giakoumakis can also score very different kinds of goals, you only need to look at his goals against Motherwell for an example of that, his first goal was a superb overhead kick, whilst his second was a finish from very close range.

Celtic needed players to step up when Kyogo suffered the hamstring injury that kept him out of action for around four months, and