Brendan Rodgers has insisted that he will only sign young players whom he is convinced have the desired attitude and application in addition to their natural ability.

The Hoops are closing in on a deal for 19-year-old Ivorian Kouassi Eboue in a £2.8m deal and Rodgers is intent on ensuring that he gets value for money with any players he brings into the Parkhead club.

But the Celtic manager has also insisted that the players who will then go onto a higher level are the ones who understand just what the Parkhead club can do for their careers.

“The money can distort the reality for a lot of young players,” he said. “It takes away from performing and winning things and having games under your belt.

“Now because the rewards can be given out so quickly, a lot of young players lose sight of that. It is the clever ones who put themselves on a pathway to perform, knowing that the rewards will come if they keep producing.”

Moussa Dembele falls into the category, with Rodgers repeatedly enthusing over the player and his representatives to focus on a long-term vision.

And while Rodgers is resigned to the fact that Dembele will ultimately move on from Celtic, he has shrugged off any speculation around the 20-year-old’s immediate future.

“It won’t be January for Moussa,” said Rodgers. “It is the way it is up here. You know at Celtic that if you get a really talented player then the cycle at best is a couple of years, like Victor Wanyama and Virgil van Dijk and Ki Sung-Yeung.

“If they have that quality then it is a great platform for them to demonstrate that and then they know there is a better financial situation down south.

“With Moussa it was always going to be the case but the difference now with Celtic is that if he does leave here he won’t be going to a bottom end Premier League table. He is at a huge club and playing in front of 60,000 a week.”

Meanwhile, Rodgers has also admitted that he has thrived in Scotland in a way that has perhaps taken him a little by surprise.

“It has been more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be,” he said. “It has been brilliant. I enjoyed the Premier League, of course I did, it is the most competitive league in the world, every week and every game.

“It was always going to be after a little time out of the game that my next challenge was going to be at a big club and I came to Celtic because of that. It is unique. It is an absolutely huge club and the chance to come here at this point in my career was always going to be too good to turn down.

“When I left Liverpool I had no intention of doing anything for a few months. I wanted a couple of months out. In that period I had one or two options in England and abroad and two offers out in China but I had wanted to wait and see and it has really worked out well for me. I got the chance to speak to Peter Lawwell and Dermot Desmond and I felt really excited right away.”

Elsewhere, young Celtic forward Aiden Nesbitt will remain at Morton on-loan until the end of the season, while Celtic have also been linked with Nottingham Forrest midfielder Henri Landsbury.