Ange Postecoglou noted the significance of Georgios Giakoumakis’ first Celtic goal in his first start as the Hoops beat St Johnstone 2-0 in the Premiership at Parkhead.
In the 35th minute of his fourth appearance signing from Dutch side VVV-Venlo in August, the Greece striker converted an Anthony Ralston pass to make the breakthrough against a stuffy Saints side.
With 10 minutes remaining, returning full-back Josip Juranovic added a second with a penalty as Postecoglou’s side extended their winning run to four games to leave them one point behind leaders Hearts and Rangers, with the Light Blues playing at St Mirren on Sunday.
The Hoops boss said: “You know what strikers are like, there’s no striker in the world that doesn’t feel good unless he is scoring goals, particularly when you come to a new club and a new environment.
“For me, whether he scored or not wasn’t going to be as important. I think he did what we needed to today.
“But I know for him, getting that goal is going to be pleasing and hopefully he can build from there.
“You can never be overloaded with options but it’s great to see we have those options in attack now.
“I was really pleased to see Mikey (Johnston) back because he looked really good in pre-season.
“I know how talented he is but the key from him was to get his body healthy and be really patient with him.
“He is now getting more game time and he is a talented player. The way we play I know he can have a huge impact.
“He just needs to stay healthy and keep improving his game.
“Hopefully James Forrest is not too far away either.”
The former Australia boss was pleased with the patience his side showed.
He added: “I knew it was going to be a difficult game, one where we were not going to get a helluva lot of space, particularly in and around their box.
“We had to be disciplined and patient with our football and I felt we did that.
“There weren’t many times we got frustrated or over-played things – we stayed calm and composed.
“Also we were clinical when we did get the chance. That was key, we took our chance really well.
“It was good to get the second goal and we could probably have had a couple more in the end.”
Callum Davidson’s side were holding out until defender Callum Booth failed to deal with the ball dropping out the air from Juranovic’s deflected shot allowing Ralston to set up Giakoumakis.
Davidson said: “He just misjudged it. It is unlike Callum.
“It was a long-range shot that we can deal with and if we deal with that, then we don’t concede.
“Listen, Callum didn’t mean to do it, I am not blaming Callum, we got punished for it.
“I don’t think Celtic had many chances in the first half but we got punished then the game becomes a little bit harder for us.
“I watched the penalty back, I am still not sure if it was in the box or out of the box but the referee, like Hibs (game), was very quick to give a penalty against us.”
