Brendan Rodgers has insisted that Odsonne Edouard is one of the best youngsters he has worked – and maintained that he is the most natural striker at the club.

The 19-year-old is on loan at Celtic from parent side PSG for the remainder of the season. The hero of the hour when Celtic triumphed at Ibrox earlier this month, Edouard has come to the fore in the latter months of the campaign.

And while Celtic fans were singing his praises in the aftermath of the winning goal at Ibrox, Rodgers was unsurprised at the striker’s ability and finish. Edouard has netted 8 goals for Celtic this term in 24 appearances, the majority of which have come from the bench and Rodgers believes that out of the three forwards he has at the club – Moussa Dembele, Leigh Griffiths and Edouard – that the Frenchman is the most naturally gifted.

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“I have seen it. I have said that all along,” said the Celtic manager. “Sometimes I use him from the bench and sometimes start him.

“He is the most natural of all our strikers in how he moves. His movement is phenomenal for a young player. How he drifts in and out of space. Then his actual speed to get in behind.

“It is very early in his career but if you measure him coming through at PSG and France, he is a record goalscorer. He has the ability to score goals.

“If you look at starts and goals for us, he is at a really good level.

“But he has had to come here and adapt. He couldn’t speak the language initially but he is working on that and trying his best.

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“He trains well every days. He does things on the training ground that amaze me, really. Just his ability. And he is tough. He is a tough boy.

“So he is a really big talent and I have always felt, even when he hasn’t played, that he has that talent. Like any young player, there is lots to improve on but he is a big weapon for us whether he starts or comes off the bench.”

Celtic full-back Kieran Tierney revealed in the immediate aftermath of the game against Rangers that Edouard was the quietest player in the dressing room as the Parkhead side celebrated a victory that effectively sealed a seventh successive title.

And that temperament is what Rodgers believes marks the player out as he takes the initial steps on his senior career. Edouard claimed a hat-trick for Celtic back in December against Motherwell but it was his performance from the bench against Rangers that really caught the eye.

“You see him after the game at Ibrox,” he said. “People are jumping about and rightly so. He is walking about as if “what’s going on here”. It can be real strength that because he never gets too disappointed or too high. But he knows he is a player.”

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Another who has come to the fore in recent months is Olivier Ntcham.

There was an argument that Ntcham was a man of the match candidate for his part in that Ibrox victory and Rodgers had anticipated that the player’s influence would grow as he settled into the club.

Still only 22 the French midfielder started his career at Manchester City where he found the road to the first-team blocked. His subsequent two-year loan to Genoa brought an introduction to first-team football after never making an appearance for City.

Over the past few months in particular Ntcham has shown an elegance combined with a physicality in the middle of the park that suggests he is the closest Celtic have come to replacing Victor Wanyama since he left the Kenyan internationalist left the club for Southampton in 2013.

“It is just about bedding him in,” said Rodgers. “When he came in it was about one game a week. You have to remember he played 38 games over two seasons in Genoa.

“He was virtually up to that in one season here. So that takes time to adapt and then you add pressure to that as well.

“It’s just been about building his way through. He started to recover better in games and be able to go again in the next one.

“Now we are at a stage of the season where it is virtually one game a week, he can cope with that really well.

“You see his qualities. And he has no ego. You look at the three midfield players we had when we went down to 10 men at Ibrox –Callum, Browny and Olivier. Their ability to move and run without ego was important. He is a big talent.”