Why offloading Jack Hendry is the right move by Celtic

According to Daily Mail, Celtic defender Jack Hendry has agreed to join Manchester City’s sister club Melbourne City in Australia.

Hendry, 24, who came through the ranks of Celtic and Partick Thistle’s youth system, has featured only once this season in the Scottish League. He was on different loan spells with clubs like Shrewsbury Town, Wigan and MK Dons before joining Dundee United in 2017.

Hendry’s only successive time was at the Tannadice Park, where he played 24 Premiership games and apart from that, he could not put in a string of performances for any side.

Since returning to Celtic Park in the winter of 2018, Hendry has played in only 27 games and, in his last appearance, he accounted for just 11 minutes on the pitch.

However, the report suggests that the Scottish international had offers from the English Championship side but agreed on a deal with the Australians and is on the move.

Meanwhile, Neil Lennon’s side are continuing to dominate the Scottish Premiership with a two-point lead over city-rivals Rangers. They have been a nicely knit unit under the Northern Irishman and are competing strongly for various trophies, including the Europa League.

Though the Hoops have done well so far, they need to trim down their huge squad and see that all their players fit into the side. And by offloading Jack Hendry, they are doing the right thing.

Celtic have some solid centre-backs in their ranks in the likes of Christopher Jullien, Jozo Simunovic, Kristoffer Ajer and Hatem Abd Elhamed in their ranks. Though Simunovic and Elhamed are injured and out of action for quite a while, both of them are experienced and their return to the side would be a boost for the manager.

In the meantime, Jullien and Ajer have done a decent job and the duo has formed a strong partnership in the absence of their first-choice centre-backs. And keeping Hendry would have become a problem for the manager, who would have had to shuffle the players in order to offer everyone an equal chance.

Hence, it is the right choice by the 24-year-old to move on and get regular game time as he has found it hard to feature regularly over the past two years. A young player like him needs to be playing week in and week out.