When it comes to a season of failure, not many can lay claim to that tag more than Celtic defender Jack Hendry.
It actually began with a massive vote of confidence from then-manager Brendan Rodgers too. Hendry had featured in a handful of matches during the end of the 2017/18 campaign. Whilst he had his faults, there did appear to be something there.
And that led to Rodgers giving Hendry key game-time in the Champions League qualifiers this season. Indeed, the former Dundee centre-back played in all six of our qualification matches.
Unfortunately, Hendry was often caught out with lackadaisical ball-retention and erratic positioning. It was a key reason AEK Athens took a 1-1 draw from Celtic Park back to Greece too. In Athens, Hendry was also strongly at fault for the opposition’s first goal in particular, as Celtic bowed out of Europe’s premier club competition.
Hendry would only manage 15 appearances overall this year. In eight of them, Celtic failed to win as they consistently shipped goals. His partnership with Kristoffer Ajer wasn’t developing well, and he was quickly booted out for new arrival Filip Benkovic.
An entire four months would pass between Hendry’s penultimate and final outing of the season. His last match came in the 4-1 win over Motherwell back in February. At this point, supporters had lost much faith in him, with Benkovic, Ajer, Jozo Simunovic, and Dedryck Boyata all ahead of him in the pecking order.
Lennon’s arrival did nothing for him
Neil Lennon’s arrival didn’t help much either. He didn’t feature once under Lennon, and actually only made two matchday squads under the Northern Irishman too.
It didn’t help that Hendry was also getting into spats with supporters on social media too (Scottish Sun). In a period that called for calm and cool heads, Hendry failed to show it.
And now we look ahead to the new season. Celtic require two further centre-backs after the departures of both Boyata and Benkovic. Not one supporter has been particularly giddy about the prospect of Hendry trying to step up once again.
It’s going to be one heck of an important pre-season for the £1.5million man. He has much to prove to a manager who clearly hasn’t rated him since he came in the door.
Celtic, you would have to think, would be highly likely to make further defensive reinforcements this summer too. That doesn’t bode well for Hendry either, who still has three years left on his deal (Transfermarkt)
He has that much convincing to do that his Celtic career already looks dead. But who knows? Perhaps Hendry can string some form together and get his chance out of the blue. At the moment, that’s looking like the only way he gets back into the Parkhead picture.
But if we’re being honest – this past season may just go down as the worst in Hendry’s career to date.
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