ONLY Dedryck Boyata will know whether he could have taken to the field in Athens on Tuesday night. Attaching pictures of himself hooked up to some medical contraption or other, using the kind of terminology generally used in relation to the Death Star in Star Wars, the big Belgian defender clearly thought not. “Unfortunately,” he wrote, “I’m not yet 100% operational”. When he met the media in Greece, Brendan Rodgers put a different spin on things. “Yes, Dedryck would have been fit to play,” the Celtic manager said.
Considering his agent Jacques Liechtenstein’s pronouncement about Boyata’s state of mind since the English transfer deadline passed with his client still a Celtic player, regardless of a bid rumoured to be in the region of £9m from Fulham, I am inclined to believe the manager. Boyata could have played, he just chose not to. “Entering the last ten months of his contract,” Liechtenstein said “everyone understands he cannot put his career at risk by playing even slightly injured or at 95% like a footballer sometimes does when he is covered by two of three years of contract.”
For the sake of a usable shorthand, then, lets assume that Boyata is on a work to rule, if not engaged in a full-blown strike. He and his agent must act while the iron is hot to secure the best deal on the back of respectable showing for a Belgium side which finished third in the World Cup, even if Roberto Martinez sagely took him out of the firing line when it came to the knockout stages. That clearly puts him at loggerheads with Celtic – where his unavailability for the two ties against AEK Athens, and the defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle on Saturday, has contributed to wiping potentially the best part of £40m off the club’s top line for the season.
Of course, when it comes to forcing a money-spinning move away, a bumper new contract, or perhaps both, Boyata is hardly the first player to take this course of action. Bigger clubs than Celtic can find themselves held to ransom. Remember Dmitri Payet, the flamboyant French forward? West Ham felt they had protected their asset when they persuaded him to sign a new £100,000-a-week contract in the aftermath of Euro 2016. That was until Marseille came in and the player said he would “never kick a ball again for West Ham”. A £25m bid went through soon after.
Teams like Manchester City build squads this way. Raheem Sterling phoned in sick ahead of a Far East tour once he had decided to leave Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool, while Riyad Mahrez finally joined up this summer, months after missing training and an FA Cup tie to force his move from Leicester City.
You could even say a couple of former Celtic strikers were ahead of their time in this regard. So disenchanted was big Pierre van Hooijdonk at being priced out of a move to PSV Eindhoven from Nottingham Forest that he decided to train on his own, laughing off all the fines which came his way until the move went through. Then there was Mark Viduka, who came off the park at half-time during the club’s infamous Scottish Cup defeat to Inverness Caledonian Thistle, threw his boots off in disgust and refused to come back on. As Ian Wright – his replacement on the day - reflected recently, things didn’t turn out too badly for him. “Leaving the ground that night we had to have a police escort because the Celtic fans went crazy,” he said. “We were all taking stick but when Mark Viduka came out they actually cheered him.”
It is hard to see Boyata coming out of this one smelling like roses, though. All’s fair in love and war, you might say, but you can probably expect to read rather similarly disgruntled comments coming from most of Boyata’s team-mates in future about the way their pal decided that torpedoing the club’s chances of Champions League progress was merely collateral damage when it comes to ensuring he gets the best deal moving forward.
Boyata may or may not have made a difference on Tuesday night, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt to have him available. The Belgian doesn’t owe Celtic anything – other than fulfilling his contract until the very moment it expires. But he does owe his team-mates. Assuming, as his manager says, that he was fit to play but simply chose not to, he has let them down and unnecessarily tarnished his memory at the club forever.
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