According to Scotland’s Daily Record, Dedryck Boyata has flown to Glasgow to complete a move to Celtic after nine unsuccessful years at Manchester City. He has a year left on his current deal with The Blues, and it appears City have attempted to cash in on the Belgian defender before losing him for nothing in 12 months.
Since signing for City in 2006 with high hopes, Boyata has struggled to nail down a first-team place due to better options and unfortunate mishaps when he has played – such as the red card 4 minutes into a game against Arsenal in 2010. Despite this, he signed a new two-year contract at Eastlands last year, of which there is still a year remaining.
Celtic were linked with a move for the 24-year-old recently, and it now appears they will have got their man on a four-year deal; their first signing of the summer. The fee is believed to be around £1.5 million, which is small but probably as much as City could hope to get for a player who has been in and out of form for a few years.
The defender has had loan spells away from The Blues during his professional career, to Bolton Wanderers and FC Twente, but despite rumours he might stay on at Twente he returned to City on both occasions.
Bienvenu Boyata – Dedryck’s father, and also a former footballer – recently spoke out in the Belgian media about his son and his move to City, saying “he signed for Manchester City in 2006 and if I could turn back the clock I would not let him do it again.”
“It is clear he won’t stay at Manchester City and he does not want to stay.”
“A certain club has shown interest in Dedryck and has reached agreement with City and it will be made official next week.”
What club? I can’t say, but let’s just say he will remain in Britain.”
While Boyata’s father didn’t explicitly say it would be Celtic his son signed for, his comments coupled with reports from the Daily Record would suggest we could be seeing Dedryck announced as a Hoops player very soon, swapping places with another Belgian defender Jason Denayer, who spent this season at Celtic and is likely to return to City this summer.
