Leicester City’s Filip Benkovic: Celtic loan role

Filip Benkovic recently signed for Leicester City. By his own maturity and doing, he is now on loan at Celtic to: “adapt to British football.”

Filip Benkovic spoke very wisely of his recent decision to leave new club Leicester City, in order to gain British experience. Hopefully Celtic will throw him straight into action: sadly that did not happen versus Rangers for an intense debut to gauge his skills. Encouragingly, the defender was on the bench.

Here, Leicester Mercury explain “why  Benkovic pushed for a loan: Twenty-two-days after he arrived at City, Filip Benkovic was loaned out. The £13m signing from Dinamo Zagreb joined Celtic on Friday and has revealed that he pushed for a temporary move away because he didn’t want to spend the season on the bench. He had plenty of offers too, from Italy, Spain and Germany, but he deemed Celtic the best fit.”

These facts point to real pedigree in Leicester City’s new defensive addition. If top-tier clubs are after him for immediate use then the Blue Army may have another favourite in the near future.

It is very astute of the 21-year-old to want to continue developing in order to be a firm fixture at the King Power Stadium. He summed up his position and why he wanted to keep playing consistently at a quality side:

"“I didn’t want to spend all season on the bench so I spoke to the manager and told him how much I respect the club, but I want to improve and the only way to do that is to get games.“Because Leicester didn’t sell Harry Maguire, I knew this would be what happened to me. Going to Celtic gives me up to a year to adapt to British football so I am looking at this loan very positively.”"

When the former Dinamo Zagreb player realised Harry Maguire was staying he made his mind up to leave, to improve and play regularly, report the Sun.

Goal carry the interview with Benkovic, who is abundantly clear that there is no problem in Leicester.

"“I was in Leicester for three weeks, everything was great, I really have no objections to anything.“Everyone worried about me, let me know how much they valued me, but, for me, the most important thing was to play. I didn’t want to be at Leicester to be on the bench."

Another centre-back and late transfer window signing, Caglar Soyuncu, is remaining at Leicester City. An injury carried over from his previous club has kept his appearances limited to the development squad.

Yet, Soyuncu will be involved with the senior roster soon. The Turkish international is in the 25-man list of Premier League players this season for the East Midlands team.

If Benkovic is stunning for Celtic and Leicester City suffer centre-back injuries, he will return to England this campaign. However, that is highly unlikely – therefore the faithful wish him well to return next summer ready to go again.

LCFC Live’s brief description of the Croat is: “He might be six-foot-four, but Benkovic is said to be quick along the ground and decent on the ball. That would fit in well with the Premier League, if he can adapt to the physicality of playing in England.”

At present, the tall defender is likely to feature for the Hoops as backup. However, the Scottish outfit are looking for multiple trophies – therefore, with good performances, Benkovic may find himself fully involved. Although, Dedryck Boyata and Kristoffer Ajer seemingly have a partnership sewn up in Glasgow.