The bizarre Celtic career of Vasilis Barkas is finally over with the goalkeeper signing for Utrecht three years after his lockdown move from AEK Athens.
Most of the events of the Lockdown season will remain a mystery to Celtic fans but the first signs of problems surfaced when Fraser Forster’s expected return from Southampton fell through.
The England keeper had been outstanding during the 2019/20 season, highlighted by his displays against Lazio and at Hampden as Neil Lennon’s side won the League Cup despite being well short of their best.
Forster was at Lennoxtown for the start of pre-season training, Moi Elyounoussi renewed his loan but the Forster deal fell through as it was made clear to Craig Gordon through his contract offer that he would be second choice at best during the season ahead. He chose to go to Hearts, playing in The Championship.
Barkas stepped in, a statement of intent in the uncertainty of Lockdown but in the keeper, Lennon and the team never recovered from a home Champions League defeat from Ferencvaros.
The team actually went on an eight match winning run after that defeat but the alarm bells were going off all over the place. Autumn brought four successive home defeats, the fears of the fans watching at home on streams were confirmed with Barkas, Shane Duffy and Albian Ajeti among the casualties.
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Translation:
Goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas returns to FC Utrecht. The 29-year-old closing post, who was hired by the Utrechters last season from Celtic and has now enjoyed a transfer-free status, has signed a contract for one season plus an option for another year in Utrecht service.
Ange Postecoglou attempted to rehabilitate Barkas but a soft goal lost to Midtjylland was one too many as an SOS went out to Scott Bain.
Barkas made one more appearance, when the squad was riddled by self isolation orders to win 3-1 away to St Johnstone.
He is bound to feature in debates about Celtic’s worst ever keeper but having impressed enough at AEK then earned a move to a decent Dutch side what went wrong at Celtic will forever be a mystery.
And, are we at that juncture again: needing a better keeper?
Hart has done great, but if he flaps during the CL games and costs us goals,
it could reflect poorly on BR.
Going into Hart’s last year on his contract, and at his age, it would be
reasonable / expected to phase in his long-term replacement.
Siegrist / Bain don’t seem to have been good enough to replace Hart,
so we need to bring in a much higher quality keeper, maybe on loan like Forster?
Barkas were played out of position it were so easy to see
Good riddance to this absolute dud – Sometimes in life one has to be honest and in my 43 years supporting Celtic, The late Rangers and their newly formed club Sevco have been light years ahead of The Hoops in producing far superior goalkeepers…
They’ve had McCloy, Chris Woods, Goram, Stefan Klos, McGregor (once at Rangers then at Sevco) and even when Klos got injured for the season in February they bought in some unknown called Ronald Waterhuus who proved to be an able deputy while our very own Rab Douglas was throwing a 40 yard hopeful punt from Gregory Vignal into the roof of the net at Parkhead and we lost the league on black sabbath that season –
Ah yes Rab Douglas – Even goalkeeping was the Achilles Heel for The great Martin O’Neill so it was between Rab and Magnus Hedman – Take that along with Gordon Marshall, Carl Muggleton, Ian Andrews, Dimitri Kharine, and Barkas and we have had our fair share of disasters between the sticks for sure !
Don’t get me wrong we have had our share of decent ones as well – Packie Bonner was good in an often exposed defence due to an attacking Celtic team of the time, Jonathan Gould did well at a turbulent time for the club and of course The Holy Goalie Mr Boruc was immense as was The Brick wall Fraser Forster and Craig Gordon was no slouch either in goal – but overall Rangers and Sevco have mastered us in my time as a Hoops supporter sadly…
I’d say that’s the only place they have mastered us in – Oh hell and before I forget CHEATING – which has no doubt been going across their two clubs since our birth in 1888 !
Rab Douglas we would have been better with Michael.
The mystery was why he didn’t make any saves.