The Celtic summer signing has had a rough start to his career at Parkhead but he has been backed to become a great player for them in the future.
It’s been a rocky first half of the season for Celtic and while their forwards have had some joy and delight with great goals scored, the defence only seem to have horror shows to look back on. That’s not the start you need as a player having only just joined the club.
And it’s worse if you are not the player everyone really wanted but you were a big money signing. That has been the case with Vasilis Barkas, who definitely isn’t Fraser Forster and doesn’t dominate his goal mouth or make big saves on a regular basis.
Barkas has had a troubled start after his £4.5 million move from sunny Greece to rainy Scotland. His confidence will also have been dented when Scott Bain stepped in to replace him, followed by third choice keeper Conor Hazard.
An ex colleague at AEK Athens is quoted by the Daily Record giving extremely strong support for Barkas. Makis Giannikoglou reckons the Greek international is very much a keeper for Celtic. He just needs a mix of time, patience and confidence to show his true to self to the Hoops faithful.
Giannikoglou talks about Barkas’s abilities, they are likely to be what our scouts reported on seeing before the player joined the club. Equally he is describing some aspects we haven’t yet seen much of, yet:
"“He has amazing talents and he makes amazing saves. He is very fast across the goal.“Vasilis had fantastic games in the Champions League. I was there in Munich when he played so well against Bayern and he was congratulated at the end of the game by Neuer.”"
Giannikoglou sees Barkas as a top player. He believes he’d be comfortable in the biggest leagues in the world. But he will need time to settle into his new surroundings.
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There were rumours that Barkas was struggling to settle in Scotland but his past colleague deflects those away:
"“He likes Scotland. He told me from the first day he loves it, even though with Covid you live only in your house. But you need time to know the way of the play. Once he has been given that time he will show everyone his quality – his team, the supporters and everyone.“Vasilis has all the quality and if he gets the time that every player needs to fully adapt at a new club, things will be easy for him and the club. And he will take his path to the biggest leagues.“Celtic will sell him for a lot of money to a bigger league in future years.”"
For now, the fans will settle for some decent performances, strong saves and command of his defence. They will worry about potential sell on values at a future time if the keeper can turn things around.
It had looked as if Forster may return in January but that’s now very unlikely. It also looked as if the Greek keeper had lost his place to Hazard. He is back in the team now though and needs to convince people that he’s there to stay.