If you know your Greek mythology, you will know that Vasilis Barkas (28) joined Celtic as a goalkeeper two years ago.
During last season’s league campaign, he made it onto the bench for the opening game against Hearts and played the Boxing Day fixture at St Johnstone. In the cups, he was a Scottish Cup fifth round substitute against Raith Rovers. It was the Champions League qualification that made Ange Postecoglou’s mind up about him.
Midtjylland earned a first leg draw at Celtic Park with a goal that Vasilis carried the can for. Ange had seen enough. The Boxing Day appearance was a result of significant illness in the squad, it is telling that Vasilis was unaffected.
Yesterday, he travelled to Utrecht in the Netherlands, the land of his birth, where he will spend next season trying to get his career back on track.
Barkas is the most expensive goalkeeper signing in our history and was a significant deviation from plan. International travel was banned in the spring of 2020 and scouts were not permitted to attend games until late in the summer.
Fraser Forster, who performed superbly for Celtic the previous season, had permission from parent club, Southampton, to train with us pending completion of an anticipated new loan deal. The south coast club had some details to take care of first but terms were agreed.
Craig Gordon had been backup to Fraser and had an offer on the table from Celtic to remain at the club another season. Craig, however, was at the stage of his career where he wanted to play and left to join Hearts on a significantly lower wage than was on the table at Celtic.
When Southampton gave Celtic the green light, Peter Lawwell called Fraser at Lennoxtown to confirm the deal was done, only to be told, “Actually, I’m not sure.” I understand there was a possibility of some goalkeeper movement at Chelsea and they were looking at backup options. Fraser was invited to empty his locker.
Had he revealed his hesitation a week earlier, Craig Gordon would have accepted the higher-paid contract at Celtic and stayed as first choice. He didn’t just let the club down, his ‘keeper pal was denied money and potentially medals.
Unable to scout, Celtic were left in a position of recruiting from the teams they play against, or relying on external scouts in Europe. This latter route brought Barkas to Glasgow. He successfully played against Celtic in Champions League qualification two years earlier, was a full Greek international with experience at the top table of European football.
We will hopefully never had to sign a player without going through proper scouting processes again, alas, a repeat of the behaviour of Fraser Forster is something we are likely to see at some point.
Good luck, Vasilis.
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Tony the Tiger
Go on big Tony he’s a made ghuy!
Good goal by Ralston on his first start, pleased for the lad.
inquitousiv
Clicked on the site there, just in time to see our Tony put Scotland one up. Good coverage, interrupted only by their efforts to sign us up. Very professional coverage it has to be said, but for now I just keep skipping past the pop-up advert for the site
Amazing that the most successful Right Back available to Clarke finally gets a game in front of a couple of msm creations who have hardly kicked a ball – well done Tony – you should have been on last week
CELTICMAC
Thanks! How do you skip past the pop up? It is designed to automatically return.
BELMONT BRIAN
Really surprised that my post of the new sex robot with the Glasgow Uni accent didn’t attract SOME comment!
inquitousiv
Yep it keeps bouncing back! Got a 10 minute window after which would need to sin up in $. Can pay $15 using PayPal so that should give us protection! But………
Armenia are worse in the air than Celtic were last season
INIQUITOUSIV on 8TH JUNE 2022 8:31 PM
I’m surprised also, most people will know her Dad, Henry, the hoover.
Suction seems to run in the family. :)
Big Tony man of match first half.
Why is that muppet McFadden on every channel?
!!bada bing!!
He’s the poor man’s Pat Nevin!
Parki short on confidence.
Grow up….what like your other monikered Edward Nygma,who grew up so much in his racist union he grew to not mind the orange order.-banger
Aye that immature I stay with the one moniker.no need to front as anything else,nothing to fake here ya fake multimonikered fraud,-banger
Is that the same winkleman that blocks you as soon as you step on his blog,keep stalking.banger.
I function quite successfully,it’s fake,no confidence,freaks like you.i have no time for on here.
I would take son of lawells toenails over fake Kelly,fake dempsey,fake jungle,fake rebel shoite you spout,all £49 worth it.
You should get out and meet Celts,it would do you good,na second thoughts stay in that quaint bubble your in.
INIQUITOUSIV
Get yourself a fire stick. Then you can get an app for circa £45 per year that will show ALL that you could possibly want to watch. Sky, BT Sports, Premier, Eurosport, etc incl individual team channels (ie Celtic TV). Also get movies, box set tv shows etc….Allegedly 😉
I know folk who’ve watched every Celtic game for the last 2 seasons with great streams….according to a friend 😉
HH
Nite all.
Brian
Dutch and Ukraine both up 1-0.
CALL ME GERRY
Thanks. I managed to see every Celtic game during the pandemic via some very reasonably priced apps like Paramount or ESPN Plus. Previously, I went to a CSC.
If I go the Firestick route, I’ll probably need a VPN for the British sites. Having had my card hacked a couple of times, I’m getting reluctant to give it to many more different entities.
But life’s a risk, eh?
De Bruyne puts Belgium 2-1 up on Poland.
Impersonation of a man talking to himself here.
Ralston has played better tonight, than any game the White Cafu has……
A good impersonation, it must be said 😁
Belgium 3-1 up on Poland.
Belgium 4-1 up on Poland.
A goal scorer, a goal scorer, my Kingdom for a goal scorer!
Pity we just cant turn dominance into goals.
Belgium 5-1 up on Poland.
Yeah, just like that!
Why did Clarke wait so long before putting on Stewart? ( 26 goals this season ). Ridiculous to only give him 5 minutes. Christie couldn’t hit a coo’s arse with a banjo.
Wales equalize against Dutch!
And it lasts a minute as the Dutch strike back.
Belgium 6-1 up on Poland. Meanwhile, at Hampden………
INIQUITOUSIV
Clarke is easily swayed and does not look at club form, hence strikers who don’t score (Adams) and players who can’t get a game except for Scotland (Patterson and Gilmour)
Did Clarke take Anthony off because he was playing very well and the longer he was on made a mockery of not picking him previously
Believe it or not the English tube on my feed actually said that Ralston going of to applause would give him a bit of confidence.
He then proceeded to say that ‘Patterson has only been on for a few minutes but has shown some nice touches’ – crazy
I thought Bbbbbbiiilllyyyy Gggggilmmmourrr had a great game😀
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 8TH JUNE 2022 8:34 PM
Armenia are worse in the air than Celtic were last season.
Was it 9 headed in against us? Last season,or was that league only.
I was lookin at cbn earlier.
HH
Was tryi
Paulthespark
I think you can deduce that my answer to your question is Yes – can’t have the emperors new clothes exposed to the world!
Great 1st half from Scotland.
2-0 did not flatter us – could have been more.
Poor 2nd half – especially by Clarke in his reluctance to make subs earlier. Why wait til 75 mins for our 1st substitution? Crazy! The game was there for more goals to be racked up. Our best bet for topping the group MAY be two draws with Ukraine and beat them on goal difference…so opportunity lost tonight perhaps.
After 60 mins, you could see the legs were gone in a few players. Running off the ball, and giving the passer an option, slowed down considerably. Fresh legs were required then.
Christie and Adams should have been replaced at 65-70 mins – not 86 mins!
FFS – give Stewart & Brown a proper chance to contribute. What did Clarke expect them to do from 86/87 mins onwards? Jeezo.
Poor from Clarke, imo.
Ps – Hickey passed the ball backwards every time he touched it. WTF? Not wanting to single him out – I just didn’t see a forward pass from him at all.
The two sub’s the manager brought on at theme have scored 40 goals between them last season.