Vasilis Barkas made his Celtic exit on Tuesday — heading out on loan to Dutch side Utrecht for the entirety of next season. The Greek goalkeeper has been an unmitigated disaster of a signing for Celtic.
As Football Daily’s Chris Hamill put it; Vasilis Barkas made 16 saves in league play after signing for £4.5m from AEK Athens. That’s £281k per save EXCLUDING wages.
The goalkeeper has little to no future at Celtic, but interestingly, there’s no option to buy for the Dutch club next summer if Barkas performs well during his time in the Eredivise. [Giannis Chorianopolous]
Is it by design on Celtic’s part? Many fringe players we’ve sent out lately have had an option to buy at the end of their loan deal — notably Jack Hendry and Osaze Urhoghide — both going to Oostende with a deal in place if they performed well.
Jack played incredibly well during his loan spell in Belgium and Celtic paid the price for allowing a first option fee in the agreement. Oostende would sign Jack for a small fee and then flip him the same summer to Club Brugge for five times the amount.
Are Celtic weary of that happening again when it comes to a player they have a large investment in? It does make sense for the two clubs to negotiate if Barkas has a good season.
