Brendan Rodgers provides update on Celtic defender Filip Benkovic’s future

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Celtic loan star Filip Benkovic’s future has been touched upon by Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers today.

The Croatian centre-back joined the Hoops on-loan from the Foxes at the start of the season. Since then, he’s impressed despite having a stop-start time to his Celtic career.

Benkovic has made 24 Celtic appearances since arriving. Rodgers, of course, was the man who brought him in last summer too. There’s no denying that a further look at Benkovic next season for Celtic would be ideal.

Rodgers, however, confirmed to Leicestershire Live that they will evaluate the next move for him in the summer.

“Unfortunately he picked up an injury in the Rangers game at Christmas. Since then it has been a bit difficult for him. But as a 21-year-old, 6’4” imposing centre half who can play football, he is a big talent.

“We will have a look in the summer. The idea was to get him out on loan where he can get experience and feel pressure.

“He obviously he has been playing at Celtic with 60,000 plus and the weight of expectation to win every game, so he was going to be okaying with pressure. That is what he has done. Not so much the second half of the season, but we will take him back and have a look to see where we go from there.”

Resigned to losing him

There’s a feeling around Parkhead that there’s next to no chance of getting Benkovic back next season.

It seems the most obvious route for Leicester to try and loan him out to another English side or abroad if they don’t fancy him next term. Given the reputation of the Scottish Premiership down south, it would be a surprise if we got another season out of him.

But then again, Rodgers has apparently said that the reason for his move up here was to give him the experience of pressure. He hasn’t had the chance to fully experience that given his injury worries this term. Another year here could therefore be a massive benefit for him.

At this stage, however, it doesn’t look great. Rodgers wants to have a look at him, and Celtic will need to have a defence ready for July’s Champions League qualifiers.

Considering he cost Leicester £13million from Dinamo Zagreb, they’ll want to manage him carefully. And whilst it would be nice if Rodgers allowed him to come back next year, it still looks a bit away for now.