Celtic went into the final international break of the season off the back of a disappointing 3-2 defeat to their city rivals in the Scottish Premiership at Parkhead.
Brendan Rodgers will be disappointed that his side let the game slip away from them after they brought the score back to 2-2 from 2-0 down at half-time, as Hamza Igamane scored an 88th-minute winner for Rangers.
Goals from Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate got the Hoops back into the game and the home crowd appeared to be pushing them on for a winner, before that late sucker-punch.
Despite that loss, Celtic are a whopping 13 points clear at the top of the Premiership table and it seems to be a matter of when, not if, they clinch a fourth successive league title.
There were also other positives to take out of the clash with their Glasgow rivals, despite the disappointing scoreline, as central defender Maik Nawrocki stepped up with an impressive showing.
Why Maik Nawrocki deserves more minutes this season
The Polish central defender had not played a minute of Premiership action or started a single game in any competition for the club this season prior to the clash with Rangers at Parkhead last time out.
Injuries to Liam Scales and Auston Trusty resulted in Rodgers deciding to go with Cameron Carter-Vickers and Nawrocki as the central defensive pairing, and the latter certainly took his chance to impress.
Those did not watch the game may see that the former Legia Warsaw man made his first start and that Celtic conceded three goals and lost and try to connect the dots, but none of the goals conceded were down to any errors on his part.
If anything, Nawrocki’s contributions in the heart of the backline for the Scottish giants prevented the highly-motivated Rangers team, managed by Barry Ferguson, from scoring even more goals at Parkhead.
Clearances
7
Interceptions
4
Tackles
1
Dribbled past
0x
Ground duels won
2/2
Aerial duels won
5/8
Pass accuracy
93%
As you can see in the table above, the 24-year-old colossus won 70% of his physical duels with Rangers players and did not get dribbled past a single time, whilst he also read the game well to make four interceptions.
So far this season, Scales has averaged 4.3 clearances and 1.7 tackles and interceptions per game, whilst Trusty has averaged 3.3 clearances and 2.4 tackles and interceptions per game in the Premiership.
This suggests that Nawrocki has the potential to offer more than both of them as an out-and-out defender if he can maintain the level that he displayed in the clash with Rangers.
Therefore, the summer signing from 2023 deserves more minutes between now and the end of the campaign to prove to Rodgers that he has a future as a key player for Celtic before the next transfer window.
Market Movers
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Nawrocki is currently one of the lowest valued players in the squad at Parkhead, and a strong end to the season as a first-team regular could help to boost his value.
Celtic's lowest-valued players in the 24/25 season
At the time of writing (25/03/2025), the former Legia Warsaw man is valued at just £1.7m by Transfermarkt and there are only four outfield players in the squad who are worth less, albeit one of them is the rarely-seen James McCarthy.
Hyun-jun Yang, who has recently emerged as a key squad option for Celtic with five goals and six assists this season, has seen his value rise to £2m – £300k above Nawrocki.
James McCarthy
£83k
Johnny Kenny
£188k
James Forrest
£417k
Anthony Ralston
£1.2m
Maik Nawrocki
£1.7m
Luke McCowan
£1.7m
Hyun-jun Yang
£2m
Liam Scales
£2.9m
Jeffrey Schlupp
£4.1m
Adam Idah
£4.6m
The 24-year-old titan’s goal between now and the end of the season should be to nail down a place in the XI next to Carter-Vickers ahead of the summer, in a bid to improve his position in the squad and his market value.
There is, however, a former Celtic centre-back who is currently worth even more than both Yang and Nawrocki. The Hoops cashed in on Jack Hendry in the summer of 2021 for a reported fee of £1.5m, and he has thrived since then.
Celtic sold their own John Stones
The Scotland international was signed from Dundee in January 2016 and made just 27 first-team appearances, despite earning comparisons to John Stones in his younger days.
During his time at Wigan, before his move to Parkhead in 2016, Hendry spoke about being compared to the Manchester City and England star. He told The Guardian:
“The conversations were initially all about going to Everton, into the 23s and developing the way Stones had done. The Wigan chairman told me they had missed out on Stones when he went to Everton so now it was their turn to get one up.
“I’ve grown up with people speaking about our similarity. I’m now going to be on the same pitch as him. It’s funny how football works out. He has had criticism, come back and is a world-class footballer so he is a great role model.”
He was seemingly unable to live up to that comparison at Celtic, given his lack of game time, and was sent out on loan to Oostende in Belgium, giving the Pro League side an option to buy him – for the aforementioned fee of £1.5m, for the 2020/21 campaign.
Interestingly, though, the centre-back almost immediately completed another transfer, joining Belgian giants Club Brugge for a reported fee of £3.5m just one month later, due to a release clause that was put in his deal.
Hendry went on to play 41 times for Club Brugge in all competitions before Saudi Pro League side Al-Ettifaq swooped in to secure his services for a reported fee of £6.5m in the summer of 2023 – a fee considerably higher than what Yang and Nawrocki are currently valued at.
This means that his value soared by 333% in the space of two years, from the £1.5m that Celtic sold him for to the £6.5m that the Saudi Arabian side signed him for, and the Hoops may regret that they did not get more value out of the Scottish titan.
Starts
34
8
Pass accuracy
91%
89%
Tackles + interceptions per game
1.0
1.0
Clearances per game
2.5
4.0
Duel success rate
57%
74%
Hendry, who has been an incredibly reliable figure in possession and a strong defender off the ball, has been Al-Ettifaq’s own version of Stones with his mixture of technical and physical qualities in a centre-back position.
Celtic, unfortunately, could not unearth their version of the Manchester City star during the Scottish titan’s time at Parkhead, but he did not get many opportunities to showcase his quality.
That is a lesson that can now be learned from to better handle Nawrocki, who has shown that he deserves to have more minutes on the pitch moving forward, having proven that he can put in exceptional performances at Premiership level.
Rodgers must, now, hand more starts to the Polish centre-back in the hope that he can kick on and flourish at Parkhead, in a way that Hendry never got the chance to do – causing Celtic to miss out on having their own John Stones at centre-back.
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ByDan EmeryMar 25, 2025
