Brendan Rodgers has drawn parallels with Moussa Dembele and Didier Drogba after the impressive initial impact that the 20-year-old Frenchman has had at Celtic.

The Parkhead side acquired Dembele from Fulham with just a £500k compensation fee for the striker’s services and the challenge now will lie in keeping him at the club for as long as possible.

Dembele netted twice against Manchester City but so far in his Celtic career he has shown a keen appetite for the big occasion, something that has not been lost on Rodgers.

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“I worked with Didier Drogba at Chelsea and I think he’s of that ilk,” said Rodgers. “Moussa is still young. Didier came into Chelsea at 24 or something like that. This boy’s just turned 20. He’s still a baby. But he’s tough. You cans see on nights such as Wednesday that he is a big reference for the team.

“What I see in Moussa is that he’s a big game player. He really comes alive in the big games.

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“He has a belief. I think he said he wanted to be the world’s best player when he came in and so we shall see. He is making nice strides, isn’t he? There is still a way to go for him. I think he is a boy who can get to the top but there are some things to work upon yet.

“Didier went onto do great things in his career. This boy is just starting out, has made brave steps and his brave boy to move away from Paris at 14 to London.”

Celtic have developed a successful modus operandi of developing young talent and then selling the player on further down the line with the likes of Fraser Forster, Victor Wanyama and Virgil van Dijk key examples.

The likelihood is that Dembele will ultimately follow – but he will not be someone’s bargain with Rodgers at the helm.

“Are you saying £15m?” said the Hoops manager when a valuation was requested of the striker. “That’s his left toe. His value is what someone will pay for him. If he can show up like that in the big games, that’s your value.”

The Celtic manager has praised not just the maturity of Dembele in looking to make a move north of the border into what most observers in the English game would have poured scorn on, but also on his representatives.

Aware that there was interest from other clubs, Dembele could have pocketed a more lucrative contract but the offer of Champions League football was an enticing one for a player whom Rodgers believes can see the bigger picture.

“If I look at my history as a coach – without being arrogant – I develop players who naturally move on, but the focus is always on the collective,” explained Rodgers. “The great thing about Moussa’s situation is that there was a strategy behind him coming here in the beginning and that was through the cleverness of his agent and the responsibility and maturity of the player to know that he could go to other big clubs – and you can see why he would go – but as a boy just turned 20 to perform like that against a top team shows you the potential that is there.

“But he knows that to maximise his potential he needs to learn, he needs to develop, he needs to develop his runs, his set-up play and tactical idea of the game. And can he do that then at a huge club? That was the start point for him.

“He knows his journey. He knows where he’s at and he knows that, in two or three years’ time, if he develops how he can, or how we think he can, the market is there.

“He could have stayed there in the Championship but he wanted a new thing, he wanted developed, he saw he worked with Suarez and Sturridge, and so can we improve his movement which will improve him as a player and his value.

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“But also he wanted to become a winner. They wanted to know where he would be best suited and they felt this was the best place. It is very early for him – we are not even in October yet – but he has made a great start.”

Playing in Scotland might not be a traditional step towards the very top level, but Rodgers is optimistic that Dembele’s vision can lead to other players seeing what can be gained from playing in what can be a challenging arena at Celtic.

“What it has done also is opened up the eye to lots of people that if you look at the career and development of a player then this might be a really clever thing to do.

“You could make a move to another big club – but you might not play games. What better experience could you give to a kid than that last night? I see it with Patrick Roberts too when we played the team from Gibraltar in the qualifiers.

“I watched him and I thought, ‘we have a full house, Champions League qualification game. Where else better for a 19-year-old if he is not at his own club?’ There aren’t too many better places to come and play your football. Now that I am here and I see it and live and breathe it, it is a terrific opportunity not just for a young player, but any player.”