Boli Bolingoli may have missed his 'only' opportunity to impress Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou, Alan Hutton has told Football Insider.

The lowdown

Postecoglou handed Bolingoli a start in the 1-0 defeat at Livingston last month.

It was the Belgian's first outing for the club since a three-minute substitute appearance against Kilmarnock in August 2020.

He'd been sent out on loan to Turkish Super Lig outfit Istanbul Basaksehir in the wake of a coronavirus rule breach.

His return to the fold looks to have been short-lived. The left-back, who earns £12,500 per week, was an unused substitute for the cup win over Raith Rovers and didn't make the matchday squad for the games against Dundee United or Bayer Leverkusen.

The latest

Hutton reckons that Postecoglou wanted to run the rule over Bolingoli and clearly wasn't impressed.

And he fears that the outlook is now pretty bleak for the 26-year-old.

"You want to have a look at all your players within the squad," he said. "He did that in the Livingston game.

"Obviously he didn't do enough to keep his place in the manager’s eyes.

"Sometimes when you get given that opportunity from nowhere, it’s the only time you have to grasp it. Maybe he's not done that."

The verdict

Bolingoli might actually be a victim of the poor result, because his performance was decent.

He won seven of his 13 duels during the game and completed 85 of his 90 passes (via SofaScore).

Indeed, Frank McAvennie claimed that he was the best player on the pitch and deserved to keep his place against Dundee United.

But it certainly looks like the manager's preference is to go with the teenager Adam Montgomery in the absence of Greg Taylor.

In other news, the latest Celtic injury timeline has been revealed