In summer 2013, Celtic brought in Dutch winger Derk Boerrigtor for 2.5 million euros (Transfermarkt) from Ajax.

All Celtic fans know how Boerrigter’s time at the club panned out although he has given some recent insight as to why he didn’t succeed in Glasgow like many would have expected him to.

Speaking to The Celtic Way, Boerrigter revealed that a spat with then Celtic manager Ronny Deila over play style eventually caused the Dutchman to fall out of favour and stagnate at Parkhead:

“He wanted to play in a certain way that didn’t suit both the Celtic way and it certainly did not suit a lot of the players at the time. He didn’t like my comments. I knew then that my career at Celtic was probably over.”

Deila’s philosophy was to make the wingers cut inside and then play the ball to the overlapping full backs who then crossed it into the box.

Clearly, Boerrigter didn’t agree with this and resultantly faced consequences:

“He eventually pulled me out of the team and told me that he had no room for me the next season. I told him that was perfectly fine and I did not have a problem with that and I would leave.”

It was not as simple as this, though, for the Dutchman.

He wanted a move to FC Utrecht in his homeland although he said the situation with wages was ‘unbelievably bad’. Boerrigter was then forced to see out his contract at Parkhead and at the end of it, eventually retired.

Despite these claims from Boerrigter, it must be remembered he was plagued by injuries in his time at Celtic.

He impressed on his debut in a short cameo but after that, failed to capture the imagination.

Due to this, we might be able to see why Deila did what he did.

If a a player, who contributed so little to the team, was questioning tactics from the manager, why wouldn’t you not take a hard stance.