Dundee boss James McPake has spoken about the impact goalkeeper Conor Hazard had during his time at the club, and has disclosed that the club were close to signing the player on loan for a third time.
Hazard has started Celtic’s last two league games, and he seems to be performing well for the Premiership club. McPake isn’t surprised about that, as he felt that Hazard brought a lot to the Dens Park club before the season was brought to an early conclusion in March.
“We saw his quality here”
“We saw his quality here. Conor is also a really humble, nice guy. He really enjoyed his two loan spells, enjoyed working with Bobby (Geddes) and he helped us” he said (The Courier).
“He kept five clean sheets in his last five games, only conceding once in his second spell here before lockdown, he brought a lot to our squad, so we tried, and we thought we were getting him back. Unfortunately Celtic had other ideas at the very end, and you can now see why” McPake revealed.
Player contacted manager
McPake might not have managed to sign Hazard on another loan deal. But he did hear from the goalkeeper after he made his Celtic debut, which pleased the Dundee manager, as the 22-year-old thanked McPake and goalkeeping coach Bobby Geddes for the help they gave him at Dundee.
“He’s a great guy, and he picked the phone up after making his first start for Celtic. He’d played in Europe, but he picked up the phone and thanked myself, Bobby and all the staff here at Dundee for everything we did for him. That’s a class act from a classy person.”