Club Brugge's Jack Hendry now in better place as former Celtic defender speaks on change of fortunes

Jack Hendry has endured so many setbacks in his career that when former Club Brugge head coach Alfred Schreuder started exiling him from his team earlier this year, the defender would have been entitled to scoff.

He might have asked: is that the best that you’ve got? Hendry has been through the mill which is why his recent success after regaining his place in the team – he scored as Brugge sealed the Belgian Pro League title with a 3-1 win over Royal Antwerp last month – was all the more admirable as well as personally satisfying for the player himself.

Although Hendry now claims the row was “blown out of proportion”, there is no denying the snub hurt him.

It was clearly irking him when he spoke out after scoring in Scotland’s 2-2 friendly draw with Austria in March. It was his first action for club or country for five weeks.

Schreuder, who had only recently arrived from Barcelona where he had been assistant coach to Ronald Koeman, dropped the centre-half to the bench. On one occasion he even excluded him from the squad completely in favour of a 19-year-old rookie Abakar Sylla.

It was a sudden shift in fortunes for Hendry, who was a mainstay of previous manager Philippe Clemente’s team after joining in August from KV Oostende.

Hendry earned the man of the match award when up against Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar in a Champions League group match against Paris Saint-Germain in September.

Schreuder assured Hendry it was nothing personal. However, the defender sounded not so sure. “We changed manager and he [Schreuder] has been extremely harsh on me,” he told reporters in Vienna during the last international break. “We will see what happens when I go back but it needs to change.”

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