BENJI SIEGRIST risks becoming one of football’s greatest underachievers.
The big Celtic stand-by keeper has not played for the first team this season and has fallen to third place in Brendan Rodgers’ matchday squad.
Joe Hart has been a fixture at No.1, while Scott Bain was chosen to fill in when the 36-year-old 75-cap England international was suspended for the Premiership visit to Motherwell, where a stoppage-time goal from Matt O’Riley secured the points in a dramatic 2-1 win in September last year.
The veteran goaltender, who announced his retirement yesterday, was forced to sit out after receiving a ridiculous red card in the previous week’s 3-0 triumph over Livingston in West Lothian.
GLOVE RIVALS. Joe Hart and Benji Siegrist speak after Celtic’s 3-0 Scottish Cup victory over Dundee United at Tannadice in March 2022, three months before the Swiss goalkeeper joined the champions.
Siegrist, who turned 32 last month, was only able to make the replacements’ bench at Fir Park last time out.
Ange Postecoglou signed the Swiss shotstopper in the summer of 2022 after he was released by Dundee United, and he still has 16 months left on his Parkhead contract.
With Hart stepping down at the end of the current season on Scottish Cup Final day on the famous date of May 25, speculation about his replacement has begun.
However, the champions may already know the solution within their own ranks.
Siegrist, who has made only two League Cup appearances since moving to Glasgow, sparkled at Tannadice and hasn’t disappointed in his brief spell at Celtic since Rodgers joined in June.
In January, it appeared like he may be moving to Austria on loan to Sturm Graz, but the move fell through after talks.
There will be reasons for the player’s absence from the first-team picture, but there is no doubt the 6ft-plus protector possesses the all-round talent and quality to make the club reconsider paying a high amount for Hart’s long-term successor.
Siegrist’s fate is literally in his hands.
