Celtic legend John Fallon has defended the performances put in by under pressure Hoops goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas, the Scotsman reports.
Barkas, a £4.5m signing from AIK, recently lost his place in the Hoops first-team to Scott Bain. However, Fallon, who was part of Celtic’s Lisbon Lions squad of 1967, feels that the player is being unfairly blamed for any goals that are conceded under his watch.
“Barkas isn’t seen as making a good start to his Celtic career, but how much can he be directly blamed for any goals lost” Fallon said, as quoted by the Scotsman.
“Seems to have been forgotten”
“It seems to have now been forgotten that he made some important earlier saves in his debut against Hamilton in the opening game of the season, and he was the star man in a 5-0 win at Ross County” the former Celtic goalkeeper continued, before asking the fans to give Barkas and Scott Bain more of a chance.
“Every keeper will make a few really costly errors, but I haven’t seen those from either man this season. Not that you would know the way the support are judging them” Fallon concluded.
It can’t be easy to be a Celtic goalkeeper. You are probably judged a bit more harshly than the outfield players. As for long spells of the game you might have little to do, then all of a sudden you are called into action. Then if you make an error in that time, you get slaughtered.
Still early days for player
As Fallon says, it is still very early days for Barkas’ career at the club.
He has plenty of time to win over the fans. For the moment though, Neil Lennon seems to have decided that it is best to take him out of the side. Scott Bain is the new number one.
Fallon seems to want the fans to get off the goalkeeper’s backs, and hopefully that happens. This season more than ever the Hoops fans need to get behind the team. Particularly those players that aren’t playing well.
In other news, Celtic are reaping the rewards of Ryan Christie’s last contract signing.
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