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Former Celtic man Filip Benkovic is close to making his Premier League dream.

His former Leicester teammate Harry Maguire is now a Manchester United player. The reported £80 million move will open up a starting spot for Benkovic.

Despite early chat of a possible Celtic return, it looks like the Croatian will remain in England.

Benkovic growing into a Premier League player

After a stellar season with The Bhoys, Benkovic returned to the Foxes at the end of the season.

Some of the Hoops faithful would have loved for the Croatian to stay a little longer. However, that isn’t the case and manager Brendan Rodgers needs him now than ever before.

The Irishman knows his qualities having brought Benkovic to Celtic on-loan originally.

Benkovic will push for a starting spot now and will have his manager’s backing already.

The 22-year-old moved to Leicester last year from Dinamo Zagreb but was immediately loaned out.

His head never went down and went on to become a star defender at Celtic.

The Hoops would never be able to afford him and another loan seems to be off the cards going by Benkovic’s instagram post over a month ago.

Maguire move is key

Rodgers will not need to go out and spend mega bucks on a replacement centre-back. Now that Maguire has left for Manchester United, he has a perfect replacement.

The mega money can be reinvested elsewhere in the squad as Rodgers will be eyeing a high finish.

Benkovic can continue improving into a top Premier League centre-half.

He has a high ceiling and can go as far in the league as Virgil van Dijk has before him.

If this is the case, then Benkovic is another example of Celtic being able to spot and help a player’s development before going onto massive things.

In the long run, this will only help bring improving players to Glasgow.