As Filip Benkovic takes his football to the Belgian A League you have to wonder if Leicester boss, Brendan Rodgers, has yet again used Celtic for his advantage to force OH Leuven to rush through a loan deal for the big Croatian international?
Just over 48 hours ago, Rodgers was gushing in his praise for Celtic as he claimed that a loan move to Celtic would be ideal for the defender to get regular football, “It’s certainly a possibility. It’s a huge club and he did very well there. We haven’t had any contact but he’s back now and we will see what happens.
“Celtic would be a great move for him. He’s at the age where he really needs to be playing and that didn’t quite materialise at Cardiff.
Rodgers cut Benkovic loan spell short with Cardiff after the Croat has made just one appearance for the Welsh club and it was widely expected, after Rodgers press conference, that Benkovic would be signing with the Glasgow giants over the weekend. It seems highly unlikely that Rodgers had no knowledge of the Leuven interest in Benkovic and also even more unlikely that the talks between Leicester and Leuven were not an advanced stage even before Rodgers conference on Thursday.
This is a another sore loss for Celtic gaffer, Neil Lennon, as he seemingly lost out on the USA international defender Mark McKenzie when he also signed a deal with second placed Genk in the Belgian A League.
There is still plenty of time in this window to bring in reinforcements for the defence but Celtic MUST be wary because if we do not get in the correct personnel there is a very real danger of our rivals winning the title with a record points gap.