Giakoumakis Was Not Responsible For Celtic’s Failure Yesterday.

One of the things the Celtic support does really well – unfortunately – is apportions blame to individuals for what essentially amount to collective failings.

How happy Starfelt must be not only that he’s improved enough that some of the pressure is off him but that a section of our support has a brand new scapegoat to pour their anger onto.

I don’t want to be too critical of the fans, but honesty I think some of them need to get a grip and stop with this constant rooting around for somebody to dislike in the team. I don’t think that Giakoumakis was particularly brilliant yesterday, but it didn’t matter who you put in that front line; if the tactic was to lump big high balls into the box, it was never going to work.

We do not have a player who can function in that role. It is not Giakoumakis’ fault that we opted for a style yesterday that did not suit his talents.

That’s the fault of the coaches and the manager. The decision to give him the penalty might seem crazy in the stands but those in the club had a perfectly sound and logical reason why they did it.

He missed. That will happen. He scored enough of them last season so that we know this has nothing to do with bottle or a lack of confidence.

Everyone had an off-day yesterday.

To blame one player for the failure to take three points lets others off the hook and nobody should have been spared a searing examination of their failings when so many were evident across the team.

I said a few weeks ago that it was massively important for this big guy to have gotten his first goal.

It is now important that he scores the second soon because he doesn’t want this to become an issue, he doesn’t want questions being asked about why he was signed in the first place, and the press is dying to start writing those stories.

And I worry that a section of our own support will start asking the same thing, having learned damn all from the Starfelt situation.