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Sviatchenko claims that Celtic turned down £10m transfer bid

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Erik Sviatchenko has claimed that Celtic rejected a bid of £10/11m from Leicester in January 2017 to take the Dane to the EPL. 

When Brendan Rodgers arrived at the club in May 2016 he inherited a less than convincing central defence of Sviatchenko, Jozo Simunovic and Efe Ambrose, two years earlier Virgil van Dijk and Jason Denayer formed a very effective partnership. 

Rodgers quickly dropped the notion of playing Ambrose with Kolo Toure and Simunovic rotating in the side alongside Sviatchenko. 

Dedryck Boyata came in for one appearance, away at Kilmarnock in October but when Celtic returned from the January trip to Dubai the Belgian became Rodgers’ first choice. 

It was the beginning of the end for Sviatchenko, incredibly he claims in an interview with Football Scotland that an eight figure bid was rejected to take him to Leicester, two years before Rodgers made that move. 

It was of course an annoying period. After January 17, I had just played one full season. I played every single game almost for the first six months under Ronny, and then the first six months under Brendan. 

Leicester City were ready to pay big money I think. They had an offer rejected of around £10million or £11m from Celtic. I was really in doubt as well if I wanted to go. 

So I said to Celtic, ‘Listen, I might stay if it’s okay?’ In the end, Celtic said ‘You are our key player, and we want you to say’. I think they wanted £13m or something like that. 

At that point, Leicester had £15m to pay for two centre-backs, so they said they could maybe pay £7m up front and then loan the other, but Celtic weren’t agreeing to those terms which I respected and thought, ‘Okay, I’ll just be even better for the next season or two and we’ll see what happens and I might have my move one day, because that’s normal in football’. 

But then suddenly when we came back, I had a suspension in the first League Cup game where Dedryck [Boyata] and Jozo played. 

They won, and Dedryck did well, and the next game coming up I thought I would be back in the team because I knew I had been playing all the games, but I was on the bench. 

The third game coming up, I was on the bench again, but Jozo had suffered an injury the day before, and one-and-a-half hours before the game, he [Rodgers] said to me, ‘Erik, you are starting’. 

I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll take my chance’. I had man of the match awarded to me, he came to me afterwards in the gym and said, ‘Listen, that’s the way I want you to play. Be more aggressive with the ball, try to penetrate with the ball’. 

I was lacking a bit of lead in some way and so for three or four games, I was out again and was a regular rotation player. From playing against Lionel Messi to this, it was a bit of a contrast. 

Central defensive has remained a problem position at Celtic through various changes in manager. 

Kris Ajer emerged as a regular over a couple of seasons but others such as Chris Jullien, Shane Duffy, Jack Hendry and Filip Benkovic were tried with only Jullien offering some sort of form and stability but that has been disrupted by injuries over the last 18 months.  

Sviatchenko was signed from Midtjylland in January 2016 for a fee reported at £1.5m, in January 2018 he returned to Midtjylland on loan then made the move permanent in July 2018 for £1m.

CLICK HERE for Sviatchenko appearances in season 2016/17.

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