Celtic

Celtic: Podcaster praises Vasilis Barkas

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Celtic podcaster John McGinley has recently praised the club’s goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas for his performance against Ross County.

McGinley was a guest on the latest episode of The Grand Auld Podcast and the panel discussed many issues involving the Parkhead club. They focused on the club’s recent 5-0 win over Ross County and while talking about the game, McGinley talked about Barkas and he had high praise for the Greek goalkeeper.

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The game on Saturday saw Shane Duffy score on his debut. Odsonne Edouard also scored, while Albian Ajeti also grabbed a goal for himself. Kristoffer Ajer and Patryk Klimala scored a goal each too (as per BBC Sport).

McGinley though had big praise for Barkas and his performance and he believes that the Greek goalkeeper came up with a ‘Fraser Forster-esque performance’ against Ross County.

He said: “He’s been getting slaughtered by – well, Kris Commons devoted a whole column to him for some reason, Andy Walker was slagging him off on the Sky Sports podcast and he comes out and just saves everything. It was a Fraser Forster-esque performance.

Can Barkas replicate Fraser Forster at Celtic?

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“I know he’s not got the same goalkeeping style as him, but he was comfortable in his handling of the ball in difficult conditions. He was making reaction saves. Again, I don’t want to go too overboard with anything that happened yesterday because we should be running over these teams, but the signs are there that perhaps things are beginning to gel in that Celtic team.”

TIF Thoughts…

Barkas joined Celtic from AEK Athens earlier this summer for a fee of £2.95 million. Since joining the club, he has been a regular for the Bhoys and has made six appearances in all competitions now. He has now kept a total of four clean sheets as well (as per Transfermarkt).

Against Ross County, the 26-year-old picked up a very impressive rating of 8.36, which is the best rating that he has picked up at Celtic in a single game in the league so far (as per WhoScored).

So it was clearly a very impressive performance after the £4.5m-rated man picked up much lower ratings in the last few games in the league. So it is understandable why McGinley is delighted about Barkas’ performance on Saturday.

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European Football Writer. Contributed for FootballItalia, Manchester United, Manchester Evening News, Calciomercato, GFFN and more.