Celtic's week goes from bad to worse with Hearts defeat and Dedryck Boyata row
A troublesome week for Celtic – a rare phenomenon under Brendan Rodgers – was completed by defeat by Hearts at Tynecastle and a row about the club’s intentions towards their Belgian World Cup defender, Dedryck Boyata.
While the champions were losing to a volley from Hearts striker, Kyle Lafferty – his fourth goal against the Hoops over two seasons – Boyata’s agent accused Celtic of failing to return phone calls or arrange meetings to discuss the future of the player, who has a year left of his contract at Parkhead.
The agent, Jacques Lichtenstein, said: "Celtic are a very big club, but don't behave like one. Celtic have not responded to the interest of other clubs. Phone calls have gone unanswered. Meeting requests have been refused.
“The official offers were left unanswered, sending the message clearly that Celtic did not want to sell the player. Apparently, they want the player to stay and they have publicly stated that they want to extend his contract...except that we never received any concrete extension offer last season despite three meetings with management to discuss it.
“Dedryck is disappointed because he was made promises that have not been kept. Being angry at someone is one thing, being disappointed is even more serious.”
The dispute follows Celtic’s failure to lure long-term target John McGinn from Hibs after the player chose this week to move to Aston Villa. Asked about Boyata’s current situation – the player has been targeted by Lazio - Rodgers said: “The club have been in negotiation with Dedryck back from last season. I think it was pretty clear we wanted to keep him.
“Rightly for him he wanted to wait till after the World Cup to see how it all went. It was different with Tom Rogic - he wanted it signed and sealed before he went. The agent wanted to see their options.
“So that was the on-going discussion back then, put on hold because Dedryck was away. And obviously now there have been one or two offers for him but, of course, if we lose a centre half of that quality at this vital stage we have to be able to replace him and I have to look at that as the manager, to see if all the timing is right.
“The only other point was that Dedryck’s agent turned up yesterday at the training ground. On the day before the game the training ground is closed. He wanted to speak to me at 10 o’clock.
“I had got a meeting with players at half past 10, concentrating on today’s game and I said I couldn’t meet him before but that I’d meet him after training once I’d done my work. When I came back after training he wasn’t there.
“So that’s the honest situation about where Derek is at. He’s a player we don’t want to lose. He may run his contract down but, unless there’s something other than that, we want him to be here.”
When pressed as to whether or not he believed that a tactic of deliberate disruption was in play, Rodgers said: “I don’t want to go down that route. It’s something that can happen. Dedryck’s a good guy. I look at where he was when I came in to where he is at now.
“He got opportunities, of course, but he’ll have opportunities in the future as well.. He’s in the last year of his contract and it works both ways really. If you’re going to sell a player, to move a player on - especially now in this period of the season, you certainly have to have a replacement. And if you don’t, then of course you have to keep the player.”
Earlier this week, Rodgers expressed frustration at Celtic’s failure to strengthen the squad during the summer – the club’s £9 million marquee signing, Odsonne Edouard – had already been on the books on loan from Paris Saint-Germain. When it was suggested that fresh blood would have animated a sluggish looking Celtic side at Tynecastle, ahead of their Champions League 3rd round, second leg tie against AEK Athens in Greece – Rodgers said: “The transfer window is still going to be open for another number of weeks and we will work with the players we have.
“Three games in seven days at this stage of the season is very, very tough. However, it is not an excuse, we have to be able to cope. We freshened up the attacking area of the team.
“We made a change at centre half – Jozo Simunovic, if he is going to play on Tuesday will need some sort of games with Kris Ajer suspended. So we had enough freshness but didn’t quite create enough.”
