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Celtic May Yet Have The Last Laugh In The Strange Case Of Jack Hendry.

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There was an odd story on the websites last night, and I’m assured that it is true. The story is about Jack Hendry, who has been told, after one season at Brugge, that he is no longer in their first team plans and is free to find a club.

I thought we had been grafted by Oostende.

But it turns out that it was Brugge who were really taken on. Because although he was impressive for the side he went out on loan to, he didn’t do nearly as well once they sold him for a big profit.

My concern was always that if Hendry was worth the money Brugge paid then we were made to look like mugs by including a “right to buy” fee in the deal. Ironically, we benefited from exactly the same thing in the deals for Carter Vickers, Jota and hopefully for Moritz Lenz. We seem to have good judgement. Brugge appear not to.

Jack Hendry always looked cumbersome and a little out of his depth in a Celtic shirt. I’ve seen him have good games, for us and for Scotland, but whenever he was in a high pressure environment he didn’t seem to perform nearly as well.

And maybe it’s as simple as that.

Maybe Brugge thought he could handle the pressure and then found out that he couldn’t.

I always thought he was a decent enough player, but as this site has repeatedly pointed out that’s not the only thing that counts … you have to be able to do it when it matters. You have to show consistency.

And you need to be able to take life at the summit, life at a big club, where the expectations are high and the pressure is intense. Jack Hendry might not be cut out for that altitude. They don’t call that point above the oxygen line the Death Zone for nothing.

Maybe we got the better of this deal after all.

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  • MacMo says:

    Would love to know your thoughts on Ross County allocating more tickets to the same support they were recently condemning for supposedly intimidating their ticketing staff!!

  • Johnny Green says:

    We have got nothing to laugh about or to be down about either. We loaned out Jack Henry and sold him on because he was quite an ordinary player, there was no other reason, he just did not fit the bill,. Whether he does well or not, after he has gone in those circumstances, it should be of no concern to us. I wish him well for the future.

  • Johnny Green says:

    Ross County know we are too good for them and so they have decided to cash in their chips and gain as much financially as possible from the visit of Celtic. It would be nice to tell them to shove it, but we won’t, and our traveling support will also be glad of the tickets.

  • Benjamin says:

    I wonder if a move to MLS wouldn’t be the best for him. There have been several decent-but-not-great Scottish players over the years who have gone over and had solid careers without much fanfare. Right now the league has Lewis Morgan, Johnny Russell, Danny Wilson, and Sam Nicholson.

  • Paul Mac says:

    There is a big misunderstanding about Hendry´s transfer fee. We sold him I think for 1.75 and it was reported that Brugge paid anything between 6-8 million for him, HOWEVER straight afterwards the Oostende Sporting director denied these claims. They did indeed want 8 million for him but Hendry insisted in a release clause of just 3.5 so Oostende got double their money back but nothing close to the misquoted figure that is consistently claimed and used to beat the club with. As it is I still have never seen anything close to the quality expected for a 8 million rated player.

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