There has been a lot of speculation about a rebuild at Celtic Park next season. Many players are expected to leave, others are likely to step up as regulars, whilst new signings will be brought in. The place of Ewan Henderson at the club will be interesting during all of this.
Ewan followed in his brother’s (Liam) footsteps when he made the step up from the development squad to play for the first team. His senior debut came against Kilmarnock on 9 May 2018, then he was handed his first start in February 2019 and won the man of the match award in a 4-1 win against Motherwell. As well as being Henderson’s full debut, the game was Brendan Rodgers’ last as manager.
Bizarrely, after his fine performance, Ewan did not feature again that season and was loaned out to Ross County in the September. He made 10 appearances with The Staggies before returning to Celtic at the end of the 2019/20 season, which was curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ewan was not seen again until the Europa League dead rubber against Lille, when he was brought on as an early substitute after Jeremie Frimpong suffered an injury. Playing in an unfamiliar right midfield role, Henderson acquitted himself well and produced an impressive performance against top class opposition. Indeed, Lille still lead the French League at present. Ismaila Soro and David Turnbull also caught the eye that evening and both have featured regularly since, albeit Soro has dropped out for Scott Brown in recent weeks. However, Henderson has disappeared once again and has not featured apart from a couple of late substitute appearances when the team was decimated after the infamous Dubai trip.
It is frankly bizarre that Henderson’s last two proper appearances for Celtic have seen him named man of the match and look impressive against high calibre opposition, yet he never gets the opportunity to start games, even with 13 players missing.
Henderson must be highly rated to be named in first team squads and to have been given a chance under Brendan Rodgers, but he may well depart, as his brother did, if he isn’t given the opportunity to feature more prominently.
The midfielder is now 20 years of age and it would be good to see him in action for the rest of the season, given that the title race is over and second place is looking very secure.
This is why we need a total revamp at CELTIC, we already lost 2 young players with potential this season and if things don’t change we will lose a lot more. We should be recalllng all our loanees and giving them and our youngsters lots of game time for the remainder of this season to start rebuilding for next season.