CELTIC manager Brendan Rodgers has praised Dedryck Boyata for doing his talking on the pitch, after he received a mixed reaction from supporters upon his return to the side yesterday.
The defender came back into the fold and scored the only goal of the game against Hamilton at Celtic Park, but he was greeted by a huge banner which read ‘Dedryck Boyata – not fit to wear the jersey’ as he emerged from the tunnel as fans made their feelings clear about his refusal to play in the European qualifiers over the last few weeks.
Rodgers refused to criticise those who protested his inclusion, and instead praised those who supported the player as well as Boyata himself for having the strength of character to deal with the criticism from the stands.
And he said he had no doubts that the Belgian would show his commitment to the Celtic jersey through his performance.
“Obviously I’d have preferred a different reaction but I’m not going to criticise the supporters,” Rodgers said.
“I’ll give credit to Dedryck and how he coped with it and I think you saw the reaction from three quarters of the ground.
“When you try and redeem yourself sometimes it takes a bit of time. Naturally supporters - and the passionate supporters - look for that commitment in a player.
“It’s not always about ability, it’s about commitment when they pull on the shirt. I always knew if Dedryck put on the shirt he’d be first-class. The reaction of three quarters of the stadium plus his teammates, I think you saw we’re all together.
“It’s an emotional game, football. It wouldn’t have been easy for him and it certainly wouldn’t have helped us.
“But the supporters live for the club and they made their feelings known. Then we just had to show we were together a team.
“If we’re together as team then what we’ve shown in the last couple of years we’re very much together with the supporters.
“I think he did all his talking on the pitch. I thought he was top class.
“Everything he had to do he did with a real quality and of course he got the winning goal.”
Rodgers said that he is planning for Boyata to remain at the club beyond the end of the transfer window, but regardless of whether he leaves or not, he will still be looking to strengthen at centre-back.
“It’s a position we’ll definitely be looking at,” he said. “It’s a position where with the likes of Jack Hendry and Jozo Simunovic injured, it’s a position we’ll look at.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here