Manchester City 2014/15 player ratings: Dedryck Boyata

Dedryck Boyata (2 league appearances): 5/10

When City travelled to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light in December, it was with some real trepidation after losing 1-0 four straight seasons at the Black Cats’ ground. Any pre-match nerves weren’t exactly calmed after seeing Deddy B’s name at Center Back alongside Martin Demichelis in the Starting XI, but City broke their hoodoo with a commanding 4-1 victory and Boyata played very well – which was quite impressive considering his lack of playing time. As expected, that was the extent of his league season aside from a 60 second cameo against Spurs (although he did play the full game in both lackluster FA Cup fixtures against Championship sides).

Having been at City since 2006, it’s no secret that the only reason for Boyata’s presence in this City side was his valuable homegrown status including the “club trained” tag (of which he was City’s sole member) which is an additional requirement in the Champions League. While it remains a mystery how Manuel Pellegrini chose him as City 4^th CB over Matija Nastasic, Boyata seemed content with his role in the team knowing that he wouldn’t get any minutes and we can only hope that those daily training sessions defending against Sergio Aguero, Wilfried Bony, & Edin Dzeko were invaluable for his development. Because despite not being a City quality player and arguably not even a Premier League quality player, you’d be hard-pressed to find a City fan who isn’t secretly rooting for him to have a successful career – a career that has now taken him to the Scottish Premiership with Celtic F.C.

Highlight of the Season: A solid game against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light

Lowlight of the Season: Never playing

Deddy B – we wish you nothing but the best of luck at Celtic.