Filip Benkovic has distanced himself from a return loan to Celtic.
Last August the defender arrived in Glasgow on a season long loan from Leicester City and quickly formed an impressive defensive partnership with Dedryck Boyata.
Injury restricted his involvement in the second half of the season but there has been speculation that a second loan could be arranged.
With Brendan Rodgers now in charge of Leicester Benkovic’s strengths are well known to his boss with the defender setting his sights on making the breakthrough at the King Power Stadium.
“I believe in myself and I believe I can be in the Premier League,” he told The Sun. “I’ve made progress in the last year, I had a lot of games at a high level – in Europe as well – but I think I still have a lot to add, to every part of my game.
“It would be great to work with Brendan Rodgers again because we had a very good connection at Celtic. He gave me a chance and I’m very grateful for that. I’m looking forward to next season.
“The plan is to go to prepare with the team and then we’ll see. I’ll go to Leicester and then we’ll speak, I’m quite relaxed. I’m 21, I’ve already won seven trophies and I was part of the treble-treble history at Celtic which was amazing.
“To be part of that is every player’s dream. I don’t want to stop, I want more and more, I want more trophies in the future. What I had at Celtic will stay with me for all of my life. I’m very grateful to the club and the fans. They supported me all season. When someone asks you what it’s like to play there you can’t describe it. You need to be there yourself.”
Celtic splashed out £7m to bring Christopher Jullien to the club with the Frenchman expected to pair up with Kris Ajer as the first choice central defensive partnership.
Neil Lennon didn’t seem keen to work with loan players last season with Timo Weah, Oli Burke and Jeremy Toljan dropping out of contention when he took over.
With speculation about Harry Maguire likely to run through the transfer window Leicester are unlikely to make a decision on Benkovic until they know whether they will retain the England defender.
