1ST RULE OF FIGHT CLUB TRADERS O F THE LOST BARK
£5m Greek flop has been tipped for Celtic exit but his old boss insists he’ll end up at an even club if given time to settle
CALLUM MCGREGOR insists Celtic need to restore Parkhead pride to lay the foundations to regain the title next term.
The Hoops midfielder knows the Premiership is sliding out of reach with rivals Rangers now just four points away from ending the 10 in a Row bid. Celts could surrender the crown this weekend if they don’t deal with Dundee United but Mcgregor insisted there is plenty of motivation for the short and long term.
The playmaker wants a strong end to the campaign to provide the momentum for the fight back next year.
Mcgregor (inset) said: “We’re judged on results so we have to get results. This period between now and the end of the season is about preparing for next season.
“When you are so used to success it’s even tougher to deal with the down moments.
“When we get back next year we’ll re-evaluation and set our new objectives.”
JOSE MORAIS believes top-class Vasilis Barkas can still repay his £5million fee to Celtic.
But Jose Mourinho’s former assistant is adamant the Greek fall-guy can only come good if the Parkhead management give him the confidence and opportunity to finally prove his worth.
Barkas has endured a rocky first campaign in Glasgow.
While Scott Bain currently holds the top slot and kid keeper Conor Hazard this week signed a new two-year contract, the 26-year-old import is stuck way out in the cold.
Barkas hasn’t played since the 2-2 draw with Livingston in January and has made just six appearances since last October having lost the trust of former gaffer Neil Lennon.
At this stage, his chances of ever redeeming the situation at Celtic appear slim, yet Morais says any signing entering into a new league needs at least a year to settle and that Barkas can still come good given the chance.
The Portuguese, who was Mourinho’s right-hand man at Inter Milan and Real Madrid before resuming his own managerial career, gave Barkas his chance at AEK during his short stay in Greece.
And he said: “I think he deserves to play for a big club. He has the quality to compete with the best goalkeepers in Europe. He is a goalkeeper with courage, with concentration. He has everything to become an important player wherever he is in Europe.
“It was not a surprise for me when he moved to Celtic. He
was a goalkeeper with very good potential. This was one of the main reasons that I decided to make him my No.1 because he started to play for me.
“When I arrived at AEK, Vasilis wasn’t the first choice. In training, I saw that he was a quick goalkeeper with quick reactions. I believed that he had fantastic qualities.
“Afterwards, he continued to develop and he naturally became the main goalkeeper at the club. In the goalkeepers’ world, I think he has the talent of a great one.
“I am very happy that he developed and moved to Celtic. Hopefully, he will have better opportunities in the future.” Barkas encountered regular changes to the defence in front of him with a host of differing nationalities also adding to the issues he needed to overcome.
And Morais reckons that lack of initial understanding and the building of a rapport with his backline may well have had a huge influence on the situation.
He explained: “Sometimes the quality of communication is important to adapt in a different country. The position of goalkeeper is a position where the interaction with all the players is not in the same way.
“So, I believe one of the points is communication between the players on the pitch.
“One year is the minimum to adapt to a different group and to be accepted. I think he has the potential and the character to fight for his place and use the opportunity that can come. He is a good age for a goalkeeper. He is still young with good maturity.
“These are very important aspects to succeed.”
Barkas is now being linked with a move out of Celtic in the summer to get his career back on track.
But, speaking to Inside Futbol, Morais said: “To go on loan or stay at the club is not the question. Now it is a question of confidence. He is only 26 and is a goalkeeper to play, not to be a reserve.”
PATRICK BAMFORD admits he would have lost his mind if football had not returned after the first lockdown.
Sunday marks one year since Leeds United last played in front of home fans when they beat Huddersfield 2-0 watched by a crowd of 36,500 people at Elland Road.
Bamford had no idea when he netted the second goal that it would be the last one Leeds supporters would celebrate in person for a long time.
Days later the country went into lockdown and Bamford says he could not have coped if football had not returned in June behind closed doors.
When it did return, he played, and scored, in front of 2,000 Chelsea fans allowed in, as Leeds lost 3-1 at Stamford Bridge in December.
But that feeling of a live, but limited, crowd was short lived before another lockdown.
“I know technically it’s a job, but it’s also a hobby, what you feel you were born to do, so to have that taken away from you is hard,” said the Leeds striker.
“In the three months we were locked down, we got to go out to exercise and try to push ourselves, but it’s not the same as competing and playing games. I don’t know what I would have done if it had gone on from March for the whole year. I would probably have lost my mind.
“Football is a game of highs and lows and going without football makes you appreciate even the lows.”
Leeds went top of the Championship by beating Huddersfield and Bamford remembers the players were preparing for their next game against Cardiff when football abruptly shut down.
“The next game was Cardiff and we didn’t realise until two days before that it was going to be such a big deal,” he told the Official Leeds United Podcast.
“No one had said the country was going to shut down for three months. Then everything just abruptly stopped. The next day the van turned up with the physio dropping off exercise kit and that was it.”
Leeds won the Championship behind closed doors and Bamford is enjoying his best season with 13 Premier league goals, but there is something missing.
“The one thing I miss most is when you score and you celebrate with the fans,” he said.
“You’re pumped up and you celebrate ferociously, then you see someone in the crowd going even more nuts and it just hypes you up even more.”
Leeds fans could return to Elland Road for their last match of the season against West Brom and Bamford says they will love Raphinha.
The Brazilian winger (celebrating with Bamford and Helder Costa, left) has starred for Leeds with five goals and five assists and Bamford said: “He’s the type of player people will pay just to go and see him because he does things that excite the crowd.
“The Leeds fans will love him when they see him in the flesh.”
Lingard has shown determination and skill since being loaned out by
Solskjaer
RIGHT now, Manchester United have one of the most creative, most threatening attacking talents in the Premier League.
Unfortunately for them, he does not play for Manchester United.
Three goals and two assists for Jesse Lingard at the club that has unashamedly borrowed him from a rival is a reflection of the decent impact the England player has had on West Ham’s fortunes.
In the same way Pep Guardiola banks up his possible choices, it is hard to see how Lingard would not have been a good option for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, certainly in the latter stages of the season, as personnel get tired.
Surely you cannot have too many permutations at this time in the campaign, as Guardiola is showing at the
Etihad. Lingard has done well as a leased player in London and caused Manchester City some worries last Saturday, not only with the miscue that provided Michail Antonio with an equaliser.
If West Ham turn over Leeds on Monday and United are beaten by City on Sunday, Solskjaer’s side will be a mere three points ahead of David Moyes’ team.
Still unlikely as it seems, it would typify United’s recruitment, sales and loan policy if Lingard inspired West Ham to a top-four finish ahead of his parent club. It would also be a notso-glowing testimony to Solskjaer’s judgement.
Cards on the table, I like Solskjaer. He is a personable chap, has handled some tricky situations well, and results and performances in the first half of the season were relatively good.
But even though his side are the second top scorers in the Premier League, only recently overtaken by City, it is obvious Solskjaer still struggles to get the best out of his attacking talent.
And he has a considerable amount of that, otherwise, presumably, he would not have allowed Lingard to go.
Individuals have to take responsibility, of course, and it is fair to say that while Anthony Martial continues to underwhelm, Marcus Rashford has been posting as many poor performances as good ones recently.
If skipper Harry Maguire, in his shouting at Selhurst Park on Wednesday night, was venting some frustration at Rashford’s overall output, it would be understandable.
But in the end, it is Solskjaer’s job to find the right combinations, to come up with systems that mean drawing three consecutive blanks is not a possibility. Solskjaer (above) waited what seemed an inordinate amount of time to decide Edinson Cavani was fully up to speed for full Premier League duty and Mason Greenwood had a spell when he was not preferred.
In Rashford, Greenwood, Martial and Cavani, Solskjaer’s attacking riches should be the envy of most.
But as they head into Sunday’s derby, United’s current drift is typical of their general drift over the past eight seasons.
Yes, they lie second in the table but to trail the leaders by 14 points at this stage of a campaign is pretty much par for the United course since 2013.
They are still long odds-on to finish in a Champions League slot and they also have the Europa League as a possible route into the elite competition.
But if they were to finish outside the top four, having looked so strong in the middle of January, even those of us with a longstanding admiration for Solskjaer would have to admit defeat.
Considering the position of strength they were in, Solskjaer simply could not survive that grim scenario.
NEWCASTLE are trapped in a recurring nightmare and won’t snap out of it until both Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce are gone.
Rival fans and pundits don’t understand Newcastle and their supporters. They think Geordies are always moaning, carping on and on about the Kevin Keeganinspired glory days. They suspect their hatred of Ashley lies in his Cockney roots.
And they argue that nothing will ever be good enough for a fan-base they reckon has turned whinging into an art form. But consider the reality. In the 14 years before Ashley bought the club in 2007, Newcastle had eight top-seven finishes in the Premier League. They enjoyed 10 European campaigns, including three in the Champions League, and reached a UEFA Cup semi.
In the domestic cup competitions they progressed to the quarterfinals of the FA Cup seven times, and finished runnersup at Wembley twice.
In the 14 years since Ashley paid £133million to take charge, there has been only one good season – in 2011-12 when Alan Pardew (left) led the club to fifth and the Europa League quarter-finals. In that time they have been relegated twice and finished in the bottom half nine times. And an amazing 23 domestic cup campaigns out of 28 have been over by round four.
There have been further indignities, like the disrespect shown to legends like Keegan and Alan Shearer, the renaming of St James’ Park to the Sports Direct Arena, and the flirtation with pay-day loan sharks Wonga as shirt sponsors.
Clubs can’t live off past glories, and many have fallen further than Newcastle have, but this is a club that appears trapped. A club whose fans hate the owner, a club whose owner appears to hate the fans.
It is little wonder that Newcastle had to give away 10,000 season tickets last season because empty seats looked embarrassing on TV as long-serving fans concluded a berth at St James’ Park was no longer something to covet.
Nowadays the height of Newcastle’s ambition appears to be merely to survive in the Premier League. Somehow you suspect that if Ashley was offered 17th spot for the next 10 seasons, he’d happily accept.
In the summer there was the failed takeover to rub salt into Toon wounds.
Newcastle were about to become the richest club in the world, fans were told, backed by Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund.
But the promises of a consortium led by Amanda Staveley (left) were all empty. How rival fans laughed as the Geordies were saddled with a regime they despise.
Now relegation is on the cards for a third time under Ashley – unless manager Bruce can rescue them from their tailspin. That’s Bruce, an unpopular figure when first appointed and even more unpopular now.
Yes, Newcastle really are trapped in a recurring nighmare – and won’t snap out of it until...