Celtic great Pat Bonner has slammed Dedryck Boyata for leaving the pitch against Rangers voluntarily.
Yesterday’s Glasgow derby victory put Celtic 13 points clear of their Ibrox rivals. But it didn’t come without plenty of incidents and controversy.
One of those saw Boyata fall to the ground holding his hamstring. This was despite Rangers being on a dangerous attack and having just equalised. Ryan Jack would ultimately miss the opportunity, but Boyata then sulked off the pitch and over to the technical area.
Celtic had used all three substitutions at that point. Therefore, the Hoops were down to 10 men, and it was a leveler on the day. Bonner subsequently told BBC Sportsound (Sunday, March 31st, 7:25) that Boyata shouldn’t have just left the pitch.
“Boyata walking off the pitch without even a physio near him. To put them down to 10 men? That never happens in an Old Firm game. It’s never happened before!
“If you’re struggling then you at least get a physio on. You don’t make the decision yourself to go off at that point in time. Nobody knew what was happening.”
It doesn’t look great
Given Boyata’s previous incident at AEK Athens, this didn’t look great at the time. Bonner is also simply backing up what many Celtic supporters had to say on social media regarding the Belgian.
If the pain was totally unbearable, then it’s understandable. You would like to think, however, that the centre-back could’ve at least stayed on his feet to provide a presence until the ball went out of play.
He really did owe the Celtic support a performance yesterday. Unfortunately, he didn’t exactly give it, as it was his dodgy passing in the second-half that gave Rangers some encouragement.
Would the likes of Kieran Tierney, Scott Brown, or Callum McGregor have stayed on the ground during a key period of play like that? Not a chance. So it didn’t look great from the Belgian, whilst it remains difficult to over-criticise at the moment.
Hopefully, his injury isn’t serious. But it didn’t look as if he was too committed to the cause with his antics. And clearly Bonner thinks likewise.
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