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Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers confirmed that centre-back Filip Benkovic could go on loan in January amid reported interest from Championship side Derby.

Benkovic has not played a single minute of first-team football this season, despite impressing under Rodgers on loan at Celtic last term, the Croatian limited to nine Under-23s outings.

The 22-year-old nearly joined Stoke on loan in the summer, staying put after City failed to bring in a replacement for Harry Maguire, but could now get his chance in the second tier.

“It depends. If there’s the right team for him and there’s the right possibility then of course we will look at that,” Rodgers said on the possibility of a loan move for Benkovic, which is again likely to be dependent on the success of City’s own search for a new centre-half.

“He stayed behind, he's offered us really good cover, he’s been involved in some of the Under-23s games, so he’s been playing football.

“We’ll see how that develops over the course of January.”

Asked about City’s plan to bring players in, Rodgers reiterated that he hopes to do business to improve his squad – with a centre-back understood to be the priority – but is aware that the winter window is not the ideal time to sign players.

“We’re pretty consistent,” he said. “We’ve always said that if we can improve the squad in January, we’ll look to do that.

“If we can’t, because of the availability or affordability of a player, then we’ll go with the squad that we have. But we would like to improve.”