Sold for peanuts, now worth £5.4m: Lawwell cost Celtic millions on "top-class" 6'3 gem - opinion

Having signed for Celtic in a £1.5m deadline day deal back in January 2018, there was a great deal of excitement regarding the future of Jack Hendry.

Indeed, upon the Scotsman’s arrival at the club, Brendan Rodgers was clearly of the belief that the centre-back had a huge future in the game, stating of the then 22-year-old: “He’s 6’3, he’s super quick and good one v one defender. I think his potential is huge. That’s what I said to the board when I first saw him play, this is a player I think can be a big player.”

Rodgers continued: “When you come to Celtic you have to deal with expectation and pressure. If he can deal with all those things then you’ve got a Scottish centre half who has all the attributes of a top-class footballer.”

However, after making just 11 Premiership appearances in the second half of the Bhoys’ 2017/18 campaign, and being handed a mere four league outings the following season, the defender was subsequently sent out on loan to Melbourne City in January 2020, before joining KV Oostende on a season-long temporary deal last season.

After highly impressing in the Jupiler Pro League, the Belgian side chose to activate their option to buy the Scotland international last summer, with Celtic waving goodbye to Hendry for a reported initial fee of just £990k.

As an indication of just how much the 25-year-old impressed with Oostende, Club Brugge immediately made a move for the centre-back upon his permanent signing for KV, securing a deal worth up to £8.6m for the defender.

It is not difficult to understand why Brugge decided to sanction such a big-money move for the former Dundee starlet. Over his 23 Jupiler Pro League fixtures this season, the £9.1k-per-week colossus has been in imperious form for the