Interesting to see former Sky Sports pundit David Tanner trying to stay relevant by claiming Jack Hendry’s inability to make it at Celtic was our fault.
That’s an interesting take on it considering all actual evidence completely contradicts this.
We signed Jack Hendry on the last day of the winter transfer window, 31st January 2018.
For his services, we paid Dundee somewhere in the regions of £1.5 million.
Let’s be honest it took most of us by surprise.
Jack had played 30 times in the first half of the season at Dundee having spent his career up to that point seeing mostly under’s and reserves football.
To be honest I never really noticed him. Of the 24 league games he played in, Dundee lost thirteen of them and won only seven with 34 goals conceded and a achieved a mere four clean sheets. So considering he played in the middle of that defence………………..why would I have?
Apparently, Brendan Rodgers and the Celtic scouting departed thought he had something though and brought him in much to a combination of underwhelmed apathy and even bewilderment amongst the Celtic support.
He made his debut three days after signing on February 3rd away at Kilmarnock and looked lost as we went down 1-0 to the hosts.
Struggling to get over that pretty disastrous start he played eleven more times that season and then made only four more appearances last term with one run out in this campaign in an early rounds League Cup game at home to Partick Thistle.
The reality is that in the pecking order he was miles behind new signing Christopher Jullien, the established Kristofer Ajer, Jozo Simunovic and even Nir Bitton, who is now effectively a utility player, not to mention Hatem Abd Elhamed who was signed primarily to play at right-back but is also a recognised centre back.
Jack had his chance to go out on loan to Kilmarnock back in the summer which looked like the perfect move to reignite his fortunes. An identical move worked wonders for big Kris Ajer when he spent six months down in Ayrshire back in 2017 and we’ve all seen the benefits reaped by Ryan Christie who spent 18 months on loan at Aberdeen up until the summer of 2018.
But Jack rejected the move for reasons known only to himself and instead opted to sit on the sidelines collecting his wages as the sixth choice centre back.
Rumour has it he’s happy to run down his contract at Celtic Park then return to his previous club Dundee which means he’s happy to be a wage thief for another two and a half years. If true it’s a pretty harsh indictment on the mindset of the modern footballer.
Anyway out of the blue in the last few days he’s gone out on loan until the summer with Australian A-League side Melbourne City and indeed went straight into their first team for a 0-0 draw with Perth Glory.
Let’s hope it’s a successful period for him and helps reignite his hunger to actually play football and who knows maybe he still has a future in the Hoops but he’ll need to fight for it.
Guys like Tanner just don’t seem to realise that nobody is entitled to play for Celtic. It’s something earned. Not given.
....Always A Tim! 