Giorgos Giakoumakis praised Celtic’s relentless performance in their thumping 4-0 cinch Premiership win over 10-man Ross County on Saturday.
In an exhilarating first half the Greece striker scored the first two goals of his second successive Parkhead hat-trick before assisting Daizen Maeda with his counter from close range.
Then the Hoops found themselves with a man advantage when Staggies right-back Kayne Ramsay was shown a straight red for a foul on Celtic midfielder Tom Rogic, who had to be replaced by Matt O’Riley.
Giakoumakis secured the match ball for the second successive game at Celtic Park – he scored three in a 3-2 win over Dundee last month – with a penalty on the hour mark and the home side ran out easy winners to go six points clear of Rangers who play bottom side Dundee on Sunday.
The Parkhead striker, who now has 12 goals for the season so far, told Celtic TV: “I am really happy with my hat-trick, and of course the most important thing was that we won one more game.
“We are getting closer to our target so congratulations to my team-mates.
“We played a very good game, we played our game, even when we scored three goals and they had 10 players on the field, we didn’t stop.
“We played our game and our style of play and I can say it was a complete game for us.”
Giakoumakis, who goes off on international duty with Greece, was happy that regular penalty taker Josip Juranovic stepped aside to allow him the chance to send County keeper Ross Laidlaw the wrong way for his hat-trick.
He said: “He was supposed to shoot the penalty but he gave me the ball and I scored a hat-trick and we celebrated together. It was something really nice.”
County dropped out of the top six to seventh and boss Malky Mackay turned his attention to the last two games before the split, at home to Hearts and away to Aberdeen.
He said: “We have two games against Hearts and Aberdeen so we have a chance to make the top six.
“We have to give ourselves the best chance to stay in the league and a fighting chance to stay as high up the league as possible.”
