Dedryck Boyata has insisted that he is fully focused at Celtic after putting a difficult summer behind him.
The Belgian defender was targeted by Fulham in the summer transfer window, with Celtic knocked back a £9m bid from the London club for Boyata.
That led to an unsavoury rift between the player and the club, with Boyata refusing to make himself available for the UEFA Champions League qualifiers as he tried to engineer a way out of the club.
Talks took place between Boyata and Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers to address the issues with the player a mainstay of the Parkhead defence since going back into the team.
The player is in the final year of his contract at the club and it appears highly unlikely that he will stay beyond that but for now he has maintained that his sole focus is getting results with Celtic.
“Right now I’m in a position where I’m not supposed to say anything about what happened in the past,” said Boyata.
“But I am fully committed with the team and I’m trying to give as much as I can whenever I’m on the pitch.
“I’m a Celtic player and I’m very happy to be a Celtic player. Whatever happens next, happens next.”
In Boyata’s first appearance since returning to Celtic’s starting XI following his no show for the Champions League qualifiers, there was a Green Brigade banner claiming that Boyata was not ‘fit’ to wear the jersey.
He scored the winner in that game and hasn’t looked back in terms of his selection. The only blot to his copybook was the sending off against St Johnstone in the League Cup.
“What happened in the past is in the past and I’m looking forward to getting back to where we were the last three seasons,” said the defender.
“I’m working hard for it and hopefully we’ll get back where we’re supposed to be.”
Meanwhile, former World Cup star Eric van Meir believes that Boyata can be the successor to Vincent Kompany at the heart of the Belgian defence.
Boyata impressed at the World Cup in Russia after playing the opening three group games and is expected to start for Belgium in a friendly against the Netherlands tomorrow.
Said van Meir: “Dedryck Boyata can become the most important man in the defence of the Red Devils in the future.
“He has already proved that at the World Cup when he successfully dealt with the injuries of Vincent Kompany and Thomas Vermaelen and played really well.”
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