Brendan Rodgers barely picked Celtic centre-back Dedryck Boyata until January – but he’s hardly been out of the side since.
Dedryck Boyata came out of nowhere to be one of the first names on Celtic’s team-sheet in the second half of last season. It is easy to forget that manager Brendan Rodgers clearly wasn’t overly keen on the Belgium international when arriving last summer, handing him just one league start between August and January.
In fact, the Scottish Sun reported just after the turn of the year that Boyata was interested in a return home with Anderlecht. Until, that is, an excellent performance in an otherwise inauspicious Scottish Cup tie against Albion Rovers in January had Rodgers raving over Boyata’s potential.
Since then, the former Manchester City youngster hasn’t looked back. And the Daily Record reports that the 26-year-old is set to be rewarded for his unexpected revival with a new long-term contract. As it stands, Boyata’s deal runs out in 2019 and Rodgers is reportedly fearful of losing his star centre-back in the near future.
And you could easily make a case for Boyata, who has been missed by Celtic after being ruled out of the last two months thanks to injury, being the most improved player at Parkhead since Rodgers took over in the summer of 2016.
It’s fair to say the three-time Belgian international was not the most reliable of defenders during his debut season at Celtic under Ronny Deila in 2015/16. An unforced error or a lack of concentration was never too far away.
However, in the last seven months, Boyata has evolved into a powerful and decisive centre-half and is starting to fulfil the potential that saw him stick around at Manchester City longer than anyone might have expected. He’s even forced the highly-rated Erik Sviatchenko onto the substitute’s bench.
A new contract is just reward.
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