Bren would be wise to play Boyata – he’s worth nothing on the bench

We thrashed Suduva 10-1 ...but don’t take them lightly

I AM going to tell you now that I think we will see Dedryck Boyata play for Celtic again.

There will be Celtic fans going off their head about that because if you are a supporter then he is a guy you don’t want anywhere near the club.

But let me offer this for consideration. Boyata is an asset to Celtic. There is still time to receive a bid for him and let him leave the club, allowing Celtic to make a profit on a player who can walk for nothing at the end of next season. Not playing him reduces that value.

Also, when I think of my time under Martin O’Neill this is what he would have done. He’d have played Boyata. Why? Because he is the best centre-half that he has got. So he would have played him. He would not have spoken a word to him and he wouldn’t have given him the time of day after his behaviour, but he wold have played him. And I suspect that is what Brendan will do.

If I were in the shoes of the Celtic players, I have to say that I would also be able to let it go. We all know that Dedryck was out of order.

I don’t have an issue with players wanting to move to another club and to get more money. It’s life. But how he went about it was poor.

He will have a lot of bridges to build going back into that dressing room. He will have to accept the criticism from his team-mates that will come his way but I have to say in that position, I’d have felt better going onto the pitch with the best defender at the club on the park. Ultimately, you are there to win football games. Boyata should have been on the plane to Athens and he should have out his body on the line when it counted. But there is no point in cutting off your nose to spite your face now.

I SCORED against Suduva when we beat them 10-1 on aggregate back in 2003.If memory serves me correctly, I recall it being one of the most straightforward European games that I was ever involved in.Come Thursday night, I hope it is much of a canter again for Celtic. But I do think that this is a tie that everyone has to take seriously.You need to go into these games with a professional head and go out to get the job done.Celtic should have too much for Suduva and so long as they do things properly over in Lithuania this week then you would expect that the stage will be set up for the return leg at Celtic Park.There has been a lot of chat about what Celtic can do if they get to the group stage but for me I think your priority at the minute has to be simply making sure that you get there.Whatever comes after that will take care of itself but this game is huge now because everyone wants to have some sort of European football between now and Christmas at least.