Celtic brought in Benjamin Siegrist in the summer on a free transfer after his contract had run out at Dundee United. It was considered as a major coup on the part of the club, as there were some notable teams linked with a move for the Swiss goalkeeper, including Manchester United and the Rangers.
Till now, Siegrist has not been able to get himself into the Celtic team on a consistent basis though, as Joe Hart remains the man between the posts.
According to stats from Transfermarkt, Siegrist has made just one appearance for Celtic so far. That came in the Scottish League Cup against Ross County.
Thus, Siegrist can expect to get more minutes in the tank this midweek as well, as Celtic travel to Fir Park to take on Motherwell in the League Cup quarter-final. But while he is clearly the second choice goalkeeper at Parkhead, Charlie Nicholas feels that that picture would have been very different if he ended up at Ibrox instead.
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As reported by the Scottish Daily Express, Nicholas said:
"“I remember last season there was some talk of Rangers being interested in Benji Siegrist. Well if they had properly followed that up he would be the No1 at Ibrox right now, rather than sitting on the Celtic bench.“I was amazed – and still am – that Gio van Bronckhorst didn’t go out and get a new goalkeeper. It was the one glaring area that was his weakest and it was shown by Allan McGregor’s awful performance against Liverpool.”"
Someone with the quality of Siegrist might very well have walked into the starting XI of the Rangers and it will be interesting to see what the long-term plans for him at Parkhead.
One would imagine that he would not be too happy sitting on the bench for long. At 30 years of age, he is in the middle of his prime as a goalkeeper.
For the time being, Hart is the number one at Celtic but do the Hoops have a plan of slowly phasing out the Englishman in favour of Siegrist by next season?
Celtic have some incredible goalkeepers coming through their youth ranks as well in the form of Tobi Oluwayemi and Josh Clarke. So, could someone like Siegrist be the bridge between Hart and one of those two at Parkhead?