John Kennedy has revealed that Vasilis Barkas had an ankle injury but returned to first team training on Thursday.
The former AEK Athens goalkeeper has had a difficult season with Conor Hazard and currently Scott Bain having runs as Celtic’s first choice keeper.
Barkas had big boots to fill when he was identified as the man to take over from Fraser Forster but had a steady if unspectacular start to his Celtic career although many fans felt that the Southampton keeper would have done better with the goals that were lost to Ferencvaros.
When Celtic lost the opening Glasgow derby in October followed by a 3-1 defeat at home to AC Milan the warning bells were obvious, Barkas was injured late on against the Italian’s with Scott Bain taking over.
Barkas returned to the side following self-isolation in the 2-2 draw away to Livingston but dropped back onto the bench for seven matches before missing out away to Ross County in what turned out to be Neil Lennon’s final match in charge.
Speaking to a number of Celtic websites today Kennedy explained:
He had a bit of an ankle injury, we’ve tried to address that with some treatment. He has come in for the last day and a half, he has trained. He did some of the session yesterday, he trained today, he is back fit.
Again, a bit like ourselves he has had setbacks along the way at different times and that has led to a lack of consistency in his training, in his work, in getting up to speed and developing the way that we want him.
He has settled that down, hopefully we can now geta bit of work in him now and be consistent with that. We’ll address the weekend, how he has done, how he has trained and then we’ll take it from there, see how he is.
Bain seems to be the main in possession for now on the back of nine successive starts but with Hazard signing a new contract and Barkas available again that position looks up for grabs.