Late on Wednesday evening, Celtic confirmed that following on from all the speculation that surrounded the future of Giorgos Giakoumakis, the player had now departed the club and struck agreement with Major League Soccer side Atlanta United.
The 28 year old, 11 capped Greek international striker, first moved to Parkhead back in August 2021 and he joined us for an undisclosed fee from Dutch Eredivisie side VVV-Venlo.
In his 18 months with us, he made 22 starts, with 35 additional showings from the substitutes bench.
Across those games, and across all competitions, he chipped in with 26 goals and undoubtedly those who the MLS and enjoy live betting canada will be paying special attention to how he settles in.
With 17 goals in 29 appearances last season, he more than played his part in gaffer Ange Postecoglou’s charge to return us to rightful Scottish Premiership champions, and as we all know, our then new manager helped us to secure the League Cup as well, to cap a perfect start to life at the club.
With nine goals in 28 showings for Postecoglou in the 2022/23 campaign, his last goal came in last month’s League Cup semi final victory over Kilmarnock, but the player has not featured since – presumably falling out of the gaffer’s plans given a number of various other clubs began showing an interest in him – particularly after his more recent lack of game time which many in the wider world of football believed was down to the simple fact that neither the club, nor representatives for the player could agree terms on the new contract that talks and negotiations had previously been opened on.
Postecoglou had admitted himself that following those initial discussions and an impasse being reached, a new deal was now no longer on his own radar and a move always seemed imminent.
Much like Josip Juranovic before him who also could not agree on a new deal that would see his time in Scotland be extended for another few years, Giakoumakis leaves our champion winning squad and moves on, presumably to a slightly more lucrative deal elsewhere.
With his new Major League Soccer adventure now confirmed, the player confirmed his time at Celtic was now over as he took to social media site Instagram to send his own goodbye message to the fans, describing his spell with us as an ‘incredibly journey’.
“I loved and was loved by the incomparable, amazing Celtic fans! Thank you very much! You will forever be in my heart and mind! I will be forever grateful to you!”
Atlanta have confirmed themselves that the 28 year old has signed a new deal with them until 2026, after they successfully fought off competition from Japanese side Urawa Red Diamonds, who were reportedly extremely keen to secure his services.
With the striker finishing the 2021/22 domestic campaign as the joint Scottish Premiership top scorer and more than helping us to our success, his goal return will obviously be a loss now – although to be fair, we are struggling this campaign when you look at the advantage we have in the league over our nearest rivals and with January signing Oh Hyeon-Gyu still settling in and adjusting, we continue to have high hopes that the 21 year old South Korean will have his own part to play in the future.
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