DEDRYCK BOYATA won’t be a Celtic player this time next year. He might not even be a Celtic player by the end of the month if his agent gets his way.

The outburst and flippant comment made by Boyata’s agent telling the media the two parties aren’t even in talks over a new deal will cast up some bad feeling which was put to the side after the summer break.

The window is open again, and Boyata’s agent is working his ticket. You have to come to the realisation at some point that he is doing so at the defender’s wish.

This puts Brendan Rodgers in another awkward situation BUT – if the two parties have ceased talking since their summer altercation, then there should be no doubt Celtic have been looking around for his replacement.

Celtic fans were bemused in the summer when Boyata came back from the World Cup coming into the last year of his Celtic deal, and the scouting system along with Brendan Rodgers didn’t have a Plan B in place should Boyata want out.

The same happened with Moussa Dembele, although he had to go after he pushed the envelope too far – yet there was no backup or list of strikers Celtic could go for.

This was ultimately to Celtic’s undoing in the final game before the winter break when they had no recognised striker on the park at Ibrox for most of the game.

If Rodgers again holds onto Boyata because we lack options after he signs a pre-contract somewhere else, it will be a sorry state of affairs and show once and for all our scouting system isn’t fit for purpose.

Lee Congerton has been tasked with finding new players and with fans increasingly becoming disillusioned with his lack of success – could it prove his demise?

4 COMMENTS

  1. I suspect this is being driven by Boyata himself, The agent works for the player not the other way round, Boyata could shut this agent’s mouth if he really wanted to, On last week’s showing I ain’t fussed one way or another, Celtic know what the player wants to do, If he had any inclination to stay at Celtic it would probably have been sorted before now.

  2. Boyata can simply sign a pre-contract agreement with any club that’s interested, then sit on his arse at Celtic, collecting his salary, and give nothing back until he moves in the summer. I can see him doing exactly that. Sure, Celtic can offer him for sale, but realistically who’s going to buy him for a couple of million quid when they can offer him, maybe half of that, as a signing fee plus inflated salary, in a pre-contract agreement. In such a scenario, Celtic would get nothing, Boyata would get everything. This guy has no emotional attachment to the club or the supporters so as an unwilling and unsellable asset, I would drop him immediately, stick him in the reserve squad, leave him there and just let him walk away when his contract is at an end. I accept that Celtic would still have to pay his salary until he disappears but that’s going to happen no matter what. There’s no point in playing a half-hearted, very ordinary at best, footballer in the first team. It’s clear that Celtic made a huge financial mistake in not selling him when we had the chance (I don’t know what promises were made at the time) but the time has now come to get rid of him and accept that we will get nothing for him.

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