Leicester City defender Filip Benkovic remains far outside the radar for game time. Let us have a look why Brendan Rodgers will not make use of ‘Benko’.
The King Power side have conceded 12 goals across seven Premier League matches. These figures are the fourth worst in the league, with Leeds United, Norwich City, and Newcastle United the only worse teams.
Defensively then, you can see why so many supporters and Harvey Barnes have been bemused. Despite the obvious need to improve, the gaffer has tended to put his faith in certain players.
Jannik Vestergaard has crumpled a little under the pressure of replacing both Jonny Evans and Wesley Fofana, where Caglar Soyuncu has been unable to reach his former heights.
Daniel Amartey has also proved himself not good enough to be a centre-back at such a high level of football – the obvious first change would be to use Filip Benkovic.
Leicester City’s Croatian
Benko was signed to little fanfare. A promising player from Dinamo Zagreb, too young and inexperienced for the senior team at a PL club. And the Croat was shipped off to Celtic, where he was managed by none other than Brendan Rodgers. He reached great heights in European competitions and showed glimpses of his potential.
As SmarterScout show, stylistically he was exactly what you expect a no-nonsense centre-back to be. Statistically, he was awarded a rating of 84/100 for the number of defensive actions he undertook, and an 82 for the quality (success rate) of those actions. These are fantastic underlying numbers, and were backed up more by other stylistic preferences.
Benkovic is a strong aerial presence, making use of this frequently when one-on-one with attackers or defenders in the box. He was awarded an 88/100 for his propensity to make aerial challenges. Leicester City decided he needed experience in English teams and not the preeminent Scottish team.
So, at his next loan spells he had one bad game and was never played again, and then did not play at all at OH Leuven. If Rodgers has seen him at these heights and allowed him to reach such lows, the question remains why keep him with the Foxes and why not make use of him during the terrible defensive woes we have had.
Rodgers responds
As LeicestershireLive detail, the attitude the gaffer has taken towards the Croatian tower is one of indifference.
"“We decided to keep him here because of the situation we’ve had with injuries. With Wesley going down and Jannik and Jonny having some issues, we couldn’t be left short”"
The only reason he remains at the King Power is that we had an injury crisis. Yet it remains to be seen why keep him to fill in the gaps when he was not used to fill in the gaps.
Perhaps Rodgers has his reasons:
"“he’s shown that strength and that mentality in training, which is important if you’re going to play in a good squad of players. Hopefully he will continue along that journey and we’ll see the player we think we have”"
Even the Northern Irishman has recognised the strength and mentality of Benko, but immediately brings down expectations by talking about the player we think we have. No, you know you have a good player.
In effect we have one reason for why Rodgers has not used Benkovic to cover the injury crisis despite the fact he was kept to do just that.
Bare in mind, he has not played many minutes for two seasons and has stagnated in ability. Despite being a good player, he has hardly developed or improved upon his game.
It is also fair to take into account the lack of attacking threat he offers. In the Premier League, you either need to be a brilliant defender or be a little more versatile.
The Croatian is not yet either brilliant or versatile. So, although he is training well and developing behind the scenes, he is not yet ready to make the step from Scottish to English top tier football.
Though I have to say, the day he is in the first team may be near; I would expect a start or an appearance from the bench over this month.