ANGE POSTECOGLOU believes that Giorgos Giakoumakis' presence in the final third was key as Celtic battled to a 3-2 victory over Dundee on Sunday afternoon.
Danny Mullen gave the visitors a shock lead at Parkhead in the first half before a quick-fire brace from the Greek centre-forward turned the game in the Glasgow club's favour.
A Ryan Sweeney equaliser in the second half looked to have ensured a point for the Premiership strugglers before Giakoumakis headed in the winner from close range with five minutes left to play.
Speaking to Celtic TV after the game, Postecoglou praised the summer signing from VVV-Venlo as he bagged his first hat-trick in green-and-white.
“He’s a good finisher," Postecoglou said of Giakoumakis. "He’s a presence in the box and the way we play suits his style of football.
“He’s been working awfully hard and he’s been a bit unlucky in front of goal to be fair so like all strikers, he gets his rewards today. But he gets his rewards because he’s consistently doing those things.
“He was important today. Dundee sat very deep and had a lot of bodies in the box so we needed somebody there with some presence and he gave us that.”
Giakoumakis provided a dramatic finale at Parkhead and while the manner of the victory was a little more nervy than Postecoglou would have liked, the Greek-Australian was pleased to watch his team get over the line.
He said: "It’s not the way you want to win games all the time but we’ve been on a great run of form in the league for quite a while and you can’t do that without showing resilience in different times – during games and between games.
“Today when they got the second one, it would have been easy for it to get a bit flat. The crowd was nervous but we just had to keep our heads and I thought the players did that. We created good chances and got our goal.”
Both Dundee goals arrived via set-plays but Postecoglou refused to point to the windy conditions to explain his team's slip-ups at the back.
“No [the wetaher wasn't a factor], not really," he explained. "You can account for everything but ultimately we should do better there.
“I think we just weren’t strong enough and that’s disappointing. In a game where we totally controlled it, you need to put it away at the other end but if you don’t give them any hope or any joy then the game becomes a lot more comfortable.
“It’s part of our process of improving as a team. There are areas left to improve in."
Postecoglou added: “It was a good result and a good performance. We played some good football and should have won more comfortably.
“Obviously we made things difficult for ourselves with two set-pieces against us which kept them in the game.
“But after Thursday night the most important thing was that we performed our game and got a good result.”
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