{"id":24081,"date":"2025-07-26T17:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T17:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/24081\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T17:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T17:36:09","slug":"arne-engels-told-he-will-be-benched-for-celtic-player-who-is-absolutely-different-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/24081\/","title":{"rendered":"Arne Engels told he will be benched for Celtic player who is ‘absolutely different class’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite there being clear areas in the Celtic first-team that require strengthening, there are still quality players within the squad.<\/p>\n

Over the last three years, Brendan Rodgers has managed to bring in the likes of Arne Engels<\/a>, Kieran Tierney and Jota to Celtic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Added to that, the Hoops boss already had the likes of Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Cameron Carter-Vickers at the club, so there are plenty of talented Celtic first-team<\/a> players Rodgers has at his disposal.<\/p>\n

And it seems that as far as Engels is concerned, Ross McCormack<\/a> reckons there is a player he has been seriously impressed with already that threatens the Belgian\u2019s starting spot in Rodgers\u2019 first team.<\/p>\n

\"BrendanPhoto by Gualter Fatia\/Getty ImagesArne Engels told Benjamin Nygren will take \u2018his place\u2019 in the Celtic team<\/p>\n

Arne Engels was an ever-present in Brendan Rodgers\u2019 double-winning Celtic team last season. The Belgian featured 52 times for the Bhoys, just sitting out the 5-1 win over Aberdeen at Pittodrie.<\/p>\n

Despite that though, McCormack reckons that new summer signing Benjamin Nygren<\/a> will take his place if he doesn\u2019t start to up his game this pre-season.<\/p>\n

When asked if Engels\u2019 place is up for grabs now, McCormack told Superscoreboard [42m], \u201cOf course it is. Brendan Rodgers is going to pick the team that he thinks can successfully go and win him the title again. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if that\u2019s Benjamin Nygren, who all the signs point to in pre-season, who anytime I\u2019ve seen him, he\u2019s looked absolutely different class, then Engels will, unfortunately for him, be sat on the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll lose his place in the team. And that goes for any player. If someone comes into the squad and they\u2019re performing better than you, then they\u2019ve got every right to keep the shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Everyone knows that Nygren is predominantly a winger and that Engels is a central midfielder. So why then would Rodgers entertain swapping the Belgian for the Swede in the heart of the Celtic team.<\/p>\n

Peter Grant shed some light earlier this week on where he thinks Nygren could play for Celtic<\/a> when he said, \u201cNygren, I am not sure where he is going to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the games I have seen, he has played in that third midfield player.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say to me, \u2018he is more of a forward player.\u2019 I am thinking, \u2018that will be interesting because he hasn\u2019t really done that in the pre-season games I have seen him.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it will be interesting to see. That\u2019s why I am excited for the new season to start. You just want it to get started again. I am sure the players are like that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it seems Nygren\u2019s versatility is good news for the Celtic boss but not so for Engels should the Belgian\u2019s poor pre-season form continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite there being clear areas in the Celtic first-team that require strengthening, there are still quality players within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[10763,64,63,596,23910,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-24081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-arne-engels","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-ross-mccormack","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}