Greece National Team boss John Van’t Schip has come out and backed Celtic’s number one Vasilis Barkas and pinpointed a possible reason for the keeper’s hard start to life in Glasgow.
As reported by the Daily Record, it is believed by the Greek boss that Barkas has undergone a lot of changes and it’s a real learning curve for him with the weight he has lost playing a key factor.
“Vasilis has now just to concentrate on bouncing back both for Celtic and the national team.
“He lost a lot of weight since he joined Celtic too and I think he needs to adapt to the Scottish way of doing everything.
“By that I mean, the training, the games, the food, the weather, the mentality.
“Part of the job of being a goalkeeper is reacting to the pressure and criticism and I hope he will do that.
“You have to remember he was a very good goalkeeper at AEK Athens and did a really good job there.
“I still believe he is still an excellent keeper and he will show that.”
Barkas was brought in this summer for £4.5million [TransferMarkt] to replace the former number one Fraser Forster. That was going to be no easy task right from the off.
He has come under some fire recently and has only just found himself between the sticks again after he dropped out the side through injury and Scott Bain kept his place.
I would go along with the Greek national boss in saying I still think he will be a good goalkeeper.
There are a lot of factors that in my opinion haven’t been taken into play such as moving to a brand new country and having to adapt to that, whilst living through a global pandemic can’t be easy. He is also yet to experience the Celtic crowd.
Unfortunately though, at a club like Celtic, it is very unforgiving and players almost need to hit the ground running especially in this season of all seasons.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the club were to go out and sign a new keeper in January but I believe there could still be a chance of Barkas coming good.
