Kundai Benyu is yet to play a Scottish Premiership game under Neil Lennon but he has returned to Parkhead this week after a spell at Helsinborgs.
It feels like lifetime since Kundai Benyu was one of the most coveted young midfielders in Britain.
After shining on loan with Aldershot in the National League, the Ipswich Town starlet found himself at the centre of a tug-of-war involving Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Aston Villa (the Mail).
So Celtic were understandably ‘delighted’ when they swooped in and snapped up the teenager from under the nose of some of England’s biggest clubs. Their words, not ours.
That was two years ago. Yet it feels like a lot longer.
Benyu returned to Celtic this week after an ill-fated loan spell at Helsingborgs ended in very underwhelming fashion. The now-21-year-old has gone from wonder-kid to forgotten man in the blinking of an eye.
After failing to make any sort of an impact under Brendan Rodgers, the two-time Zimbabwe international was farmed out on loan to the Allsvenskan in August to play under a manager whose name Celtic fans might recognise – a certain Henrik Larsson.
But once Hoops legend Larsson was handed his P45 on September 3, to be replaced by former Aston Villa and Juventus defender Olof Mellberg, Benyu was doomed to never kick a ball for Helsinborgs again. He was left out of the match-day squad for each of the last ten league games of the season.
Benyu still has two years left on his Celtic contract and it remains to be seen whether Neil Lennon will give a second chance to a player whose elegance in possession and craft in the final third could give a Hoops team so reliant on incisive wing play something different through the middle. The chances are, however, that he will be ushered out of the door either in January or the summer.
Yet teenage academy star Karamoko Dembele is certainly glad to see Benyu back, even if his return to Celtic seems unlikely to last.
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