Jack Hendry’s departure from Parkhead is set to be finalised today ahead of a proposed move to Melbourne City.
According to the Scottish Sun, the Scotland international flew to Australia yesterday to complete a loan move with the A-League side.
Hendry also posted a video on his Instagram story yesterday of him flying out in first-class. And the report from the Sun seems to clear up exactly where he was off to.
The news of Hendry’s potential departure to Australia broke a couple of days ago. It was the Daily Record who first revealed the agreement over the weekend, with Hendry’s deal set to take him to Oz until the end of the season.
The only disappointment from a Celtic perspective is that we didn’t reach an agreement to make it permanent. Hendry’s current contract at Parkhead runs until the summer of 2022 (Transfermarkt), meaning we’ll be in the same position with him when he returns this summer.
No reason for Celtic to keep Hendry
Even with our injury problems at centre-back, there is simply no reason for Celtic to keep Hendry. He’s proven that he isn’t good enough to play here regularly, and his decline since his arrival in January 2018 has been disappointingly steep.
Overall Hendry has featured just 27 times for the club in two years. Six of those games came in vital Champions League qualifiers under Brendan Rodgers in the 2018/19 season (Transfermarkt). It became evident from there on in that Jack just wasn’t up to scratch.
As things stand, Hendry probably looks on and sees himself sitting as the sixth choice centre-back at the club. Christopher Jullien, Kristoffer Ajer, Jozo Simunovic, Nir Bitton, and Hatem Abd Elhamed would all be selected ahead of him if fit.
Hendry was also reportedly wanted by Ross County too (Daily Record). It’s perhaps a tad disappointing that he didn’t stay in Scotland. It would’ve been nice to see how he fared playing for another Premiership side. However, his Celtic career still looked irretrievable regardless.
There’s also no chance we end up raking in the £1.5m fee we splashed out for him two years ago (Daily Record). His stock has dropped far too steeply since then. It’s more about simply getting him off the wage-bill at this point.
Hendry’s departure would follow both Scott Sinclair’s and Lewis Morgan’s Parkhead exits as Lennon continues to cull the herd.
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