When it comes to players who simply needed to perform at the weekend, Vasilis Barkas may have felt that he fell into that category.
Not because he’s been disappointing of course. In truth, his record of four goals conceded in seven games was anything but a disaster heading into Sunday’s encounter against Ross County.
But there was a pretty absurd narrative growing, and it all goes back to the Champions League tie against Ferencvaros nearly three weeks ago.
When Celtic were knocked out of the second qualifying round after two goals in which Barkas was horribly exposed for, the Greek stopper came under extremely unfair criticism.
Firstly, Kris Commons stated the following in the Daily Mail (31/08, The Verdict, page 12):
“I’m not convinced at all by Vasilis Barkas. He’s a Greek international goalkeeper, but the jury is still very much out on him. A top goalkeeper – one like Fraser Forster, let’s say – would have saved that all day long (Ferencvaros’ second goal). You’ve got to expect better from a £5m keeper.”
Celtic’s summer-signing then managed to rack up a clean sheet against Motherwell before Andy Walker was next to have a pretty needless pop.
Speaking on Sky Sports’ transfer window podcast, Walker said: “I think it’s quite right of some Celtic supporters to question the new goalkeeper Barkas because he cost a lot of money. In all honesty, I haven’t seen him make a big save yet.”
Barkas proved his worth in Dingwall
At various stages of the 5-0 rout on Sunday, the Greek international made some stunning stops to keep his clean sheet intact.
First of all at 2-0, he had to adjust his body in order to tip an Iain Vigurs free-kick over the bar. He then had to get his hands up and divert a close-range Ross Stewart header away from goal. Both of these saves halted the game from taking on a narrative we didn’t need.
There was another superb piece of shot-stopping midway through the second-half when Stewart again had too much space around 18 yards out to fire in on goal. It looked a great chance, but again Barkas got down quickly and impressively held on to the ball.
We’ve not even gone into his general ball-handling yet. Five of County’s nine shots were on target, and as well as his three fine saves, he took the sting out of a couple more powerful efforts as he showed fine ball-control with his hands.
He also showed an element of his game that we’ve all been impressed with in recent weeks – his distribution. Barkas didn’t seem to waste a single pass out of his box. Indeed, the Celtic goalkeeper managed an 8.36 rating off stat-tracking website WhoScored.
So if Walker was looking for Barkas to make a big save, then hopefully he was tuning into the game on Saturday. If Commons is expecting “better” from the Hoops shot-stopper, hopefully he was watching also.
But we all knew it was far too premature to go judging Barkas so early into his Parkhead career. He’ll have enough on his plate adapting to life in Scotland in general nevermind the total change in footballing styles.
He’s proved his worth, and hopefully he does the same at St Mirren on Wednesday. After racking up three consecutive clean sheets however, it’s clear his impact is already being felt.
In other news, one Celtic youngster broke a seven-month duck without even getting on the pitch in Dingwall.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
