The Celtic Manager Gets To Make The Call On Giakoumakis Fitness, Not Gus Poyet.

It was nice of Gus Poyet to make the decision on Giorgos Giakoumakis for us, wasn’t it? He’s all over the papers today having ruled the player out of our game at the weekend. I wonder, and maybe you can help me here, when he was appointed to the coaching team at Celtic Park, because if I’m being honest I have no memory of that whatsoever.

The big guy picked up a knock of some kind whilst he was away with their national team. Now, they sent him for a scan and the scan came back and said he was fine. They were the ones who made the decision to train him separately from the rest of the team and to drop him from their last game. What do they know that wasn’t on the scan?

One would think very little.

Their abundance of caution is commendable, but really that’s where the pat on the back ends. Because it’s Celtic who gets to make the final call on his fitness and his readiness to play for our club, nobody else.

Celtic’s medical team haven’t checked this issue out.

They haven’t had a chance to, because he’s been away, and it’s them and the boss himself who will make the decision. The media might be enjoying Poyet’s comments, but I doubt those at Lennoxtown will.

Because it sounds to me as if the Greek’s medical team don’t really know what’s wrong with the big guy, if indeed anything is. I would much prefer to have those at Celtic do their evaluation and come up with an answer. Anything else is guesswork.

The press has been dying for Celtic to pick up injuries.

They’ve practically salivated over every player who has picked up the smallest tweak or strain.

They were even inventing hypothetical injuries when nobody was suggesting that were any, as was the case with Reo Hatate. They would love it if we had three or four players out for weeks.

We’ll just see what Celtic’s medical staff have to say about the big man.

That will be what tells the tale.

Until then, we don’t know anything real.