According to Mark Walker of The Evening Times, Vasilas Barkas has been talking about life at Celtic.
Not only that, but if you believe the headlines, he has advised against any goalkeeper going to our club. Such a statement would obviously be a daft one to make. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that such comments are so stupid as to be suspect.
My suspicions are already triggered by the failure to attribute a source to these daft remarks. Walker should know that a statement such as this has to be supported by some kind of evidence. When were these comments made? Who was Barkas talking to when he made them? Were they in English, where the possibility of a misquote is much lower, or were they in Dutch and then poorly translated where context and actual meaning can get lost?
Let’s look at what he’s alleging Barkas has said, and we can take it from there.
“At Celtic, I didn’t feel like I was an important part of the team,” said the guy who plays in the role which is literally called ‘the number one spot.’ He then offered a possible explanation as to why this might have been the case, and of course, he’s on the money. “But maybe it wasn’t even the team’s fault. It was a Covid year, everything was different. For the first six months I didn’t know my teammates, we were all in different dressing rooms.”
Difficult circumstances indeed.
In spite of that, he then is alleged to have made the following remark; “Celtic are a huge club, but I wouldn’t recommend to any goalkeeper to go there.”
Now, two things automatically come to mind here and the first is the question as to why we should care what Barkas thinks.
At the end of the day, he’s just another ex-player who didn’t have a happy time at a club and some of them find it impossible to be objective when they’ve failed somewhere, and nobody is really going to listen to that sort of statement anyway so it’s nothing but white noise.
Secondly, he appears to grasp the reasons why he felt isolated – because we were literally in isolation, he in a strange country. So what is he moaning about? Does he really think that no goalkeeper, no goalkeeper ever, in any circumstances at all, should ever sign for us? That’s what I mean when I say that his comments are just stupid enough to be suspect.
It’s hardly a credible position to take is it? It’s certainly not one anybody in the game would take seriously, although some in our media appear to.
This is what I mean when I talk about gossip, not news. It’s a nonsensical story, and I suspect that it’s come about as a result either of a misquote or a mistranslation. Either way, I don’t think its news or in any way merits the headlines.
and do we really care what he thinks. A guy who we paid big money for and he failed to deliver
Think it’s the idea of more deliberate, shit mongerin towards Celtic by the media that’s the most pathetic here. Unbelievable how just about EVERY DAY, they ‘ll have dug out some shite or other, or negativity involvin our club. It must be their first thought, fkn no real.
any other country the media talk up their clubs. scotlands sevco media shame.
Forget about “gossip, not news”, try fabrication or just outright lie.
There’s enough precedents for it by our gutter press.
Oh For the day they ALL swirl down that plug hole biting and scratching at each other for that last print sale.
It’s in quotation marks but no source. He did come at a time of isolation so no surprise he felt isolated in a hotel room on his own no doubt. Cheap troublemaking journalism about Celtic FC isn’t hard to find in Scotland. Jealousy and envy abounds in droves. Do we expect it? Aye. Can it get worse? Aye. Loving their pain as we roll ever nearer to 56.
A more reliable source of recommendation of course would be to ask Joe Hart. HH
I’m pretty sure he said in one of his first Celtic interviews that he didn’t like playing in goal and played outfield in training for his previous club. ?
Good luck to him anyway but I don’t think he would warn off potential keepers for Celtic
In all the time(and games) that this joke figure played for us l can honestly recall one,YES ONE,goal bound effort that he managed to keep from crossing our goal line.
That rarest of rare occasion came in an away game against St Johnstone in Perth and l’m not sure if he knew anything about the effort on goal or even meant to stop the shot as the look of surprise on his face was only exceeded by mine at the time.
So much so,that l had to rewind the incident a couple of times to convince myself that the incident had actually transpired.
I would love to be proven wrong but tbh l couldn’t really give a toss as this article is just about to cost me another fortune on paying some shrink to assuage my anxiety over that car crash of a season !
How this imposter ever got a gig at Paradise would confound even the greatest of minds until you throw in the fact that Parasite Pete was in the building and more likely than not orchestrated the move along with the other duds we signed for the Huns benefit.
I would have thought Barkas might have realised that when you make an absolute cunt of things then it’s really the better part of valour to keep yer gob shut about it rather than highlighting what an absolute clown you are.
Some people never learn !!
interview text is here, comes from VI.nl magazine
https://www.fcutrecht.net/forum/de-serieuze-voetbal-discussies#
my favourite translation here is “It is a transfer that makes the Greek and Scottish newspapers with chocolate letters.” ?
He did not look like goalie. Probably looked like some weirdo standing at the dancing canny get a burd…
He’s the worst alleged goal keeper in the history of CFC.. He takes Big Rab Douglas Title..any day
@ EMcC. Clearly ye’ve never heard of Ian Andrews or Frank Haffey.
Aye and you could also add Andrews, Muggleton and Marshall to Douglas as well Edward !
Just another in a line of disasters we have had in that field over the last 35 years although in fairness we did dig out a few decent ones as well in Gould, Boric, Forster, Gordon and Hart…
If it’s in The Evening Times it’ll likely be lies –
But lies or not the truth is Barkas was a disaster very high up on the Richter scale !
Craig Gordon?
https://youtu.be/UY-t7LT_huY?feature=shared
French Eddy went some way to alleviate my anger at some of Gordon’s displays when he ripped the piss at Hampden with a Panenka.