Celtic earned a comfortable 4-0 win over St. Johnstone at Parkhead on Wednesday night in Scott Brown’s final game for the Hoops at Parkhead – and Bhoys fans were impressed with the performance of Vasilis Barkas on Twitter.
Barkas, 26, had not made a Scottish Premiership appearance since January with a mix of injury and being dropped initially by Neil Lennon seeing the Greece international drop to the bench. Scott Bain has been preferred.
But Kennedy chose to hand £4.5million (Sun) signing Barkas a chance on Wednesday night and he repaid his interim manager with a decent performance – and a clean sheet. It was his tenth clean sheet, in his 21st outing.
David Turnbull, one of Celtic’s rare shining lights this season, opened the scoring with a low free-kick before a delightful Scott Brown pass was superbly controlled by Odsonne Edouard. Nutmegging the defender, he chipped in.
Barkas was forced to make a decent stop when a poor Jonjoe Kenny gave Chris Kane a chance, but he saved well. Kris Ajer then netted a deflected effort, before Karamoko Dembele got his first with a neat finish after coming on.
Barkas – who earns £10,500 a week (Sportime) – was decent throughout and took his tally to double digits in terms of clean sheets. Certainly, his performance earned the applause of Celtic fans, who have criticised him throughout.