Benkovic recalled after one game for Bluebirds
RODGERS WANTS EX-CELTIC CENTRE-HALF TO GET BACK TO LEVEL HE SHOWED TWO SEASONS AGO
LEICESTER City have recalled Filip Benkovic from his loan spell at Cardiff City after he made just one appearance for the Bluebirds.
City sent out the Croatian centreback, right, to get him game time and try to get him back to the level he showed at Celtic two seasons ago.
But the 23-year-old had to wait until late December for his debut, and was then at fault for the first goal in a 2-1 defeat to Wycombe.
In a statement, the Championship club said: “Cardiff City can confirm that Filip Benkovic has been recalled by parent club Leicester City.
“We’d like to thank Filip for his services and wish him the best for the future.”
City boss Brendan Rodgers had said last month that Benkovic’s short-term future would be reconsidered if he was not getting the necessary pitch-time he needed to develop.
And it seems he has now been brought back to City with the aim of finding him a new loan club, rather than filling holes in the defence at the King Power Stadium, with Rodgers wellstocked for centre-backs right now.
Not only does he have Jonny Evans, Wesley Fofana, Caglar Soyuncu and Daniel Amartey, but he can also utilise Christian Fuchs and James Justin as part of a back three, while Wes Morgan can come on to help defend leads. Rodgers had said in October that the “brutal honesty” was that Benkovic was not yet of Premier League standard.
Then, last month, he said they had to get the Croatian playing if he was to ever hit the heights of his Celtic spell again. “He needs to play games and at the minute he’s not playing at Leicester and now he’s not playing at Cardiff ,” Rodger s said. “It’s something where we need to get Filip playing. He needs to get working again and show the level he can play at.
“Thankfully for myself, I’ve seen the level. When he was with me at Celtic he played against RB Leipzig and he was sensational.
“Really since that first 10 games at Celtic, he hasn’t maintained a level of fitness and performance that I know he can.
“Hopefully for him he can get playing again and if it’s not going to be at Cardiff in the longer term, then we’ll look at it from there.”
Benkovic joined City from Dinamo Zagreb for £13 million in 2018, before spending a season on loan at Celtic, of which the first half was under Rodgers’ management.
He spent the second half of the last campaign on loan at Bristol City in a stop-start spell, but one that was more successful than his stint at Cardiff.