Former Celtic defender Filip Benkovic could be in line to make his first appearance of the season for Leicester City after manager Brendan Rodgers revealed he would be in the squad for their FA Cup game against Wigan.
The high-flying Foxes will take on the Championship strugglers tomorrow afternoon and Rodgers has promised to freshen things up for the home clash.
“We’ll make some changes,” he said on Friday, as reported by the Leicester Mercury. “I always pick a team to win. I never make changes for changes’ sake. We’ll pick an aggressive team, a team with intensity, a team to get the result.
“Filip Benkovic comes into squad for the game. He’s a player who has been very unfortunate.
“In the summer, there were a number of options for him to go on loan but I needed to keep him. We needed our four centre-halves to be here.
“He’s trained very well and adapted very well to not playing. Recently, we put him into some Under-23s games, so that if the time did come for him, at least he had some game-time. So he’s been working very well and comes into the squad.”
Benkovic may have a future at Leicester after all
Benkovic hasn’t netted a single minute of football for Leicester since returning from his season-long loan spell in Glasgow last term. The Croat hasn’t even made a matchday squad since pre-season, showing just how far he is down the pecking order under the Northern Irishman.
There has been no concrete interest from Celtic so far this January but many fans have called upon the club to bring Benkovic back to bolster our defensive options.
At the moment we don’t have a great deal of cover for Christopher Jullien and Kristoffer Ajer and many feel that’s something we must address if we’re to chase glory on three fronts in the closing months of the season.
Rodgers is perhaps never to be taken at face value given his recent history. However, his comments on needing four centre-backs at Leicester are interesting. If the Foxes do go out and sign another defensive option this month there is a fair chance that Benkovic could be let go.
But if that becomes the case will we even be interested? The jury is still well out on that one.
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