I don’t think there was ever any danger of Moussa Dembele or Craig Gordon leaving Celtic in the transfer window, and it was great to see Celtic and other Scottish clubs finally standing up to English teams trying to get our talent on the cheap.

Now granted, in the past of course Celtic perhaps weren’t in such a strong financial position and they couldn’t afford to turn down decent offers for their top players like Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster, Gary Hooper and Virgil van Dijk.

Obviously there was great interest in Dembele and speculation that he may have gone to Chelsea, but Celtic didn’t need to sell and that was a big factor in him staying at the club.

In Gordon’s case, I think he will be given a huge boost by the fact that a team like Chelsea came in for him, but when you weigh it up the financial benefit he would have got there wasn’t worth going down to be a number two in my opinion.

And, after all, he will still be the beneficiary of the interest, because he will be rewarded for his fine form with a new contract as well.

But with Dembele, the pleasing thing from a Celtic perspective is that the player himself wasn’t agitating for a move, and seems genuinely happy to still be at the club.

What has perhaps strengthened Celtic’s resolve is that compared to some of those players, Dembele himself doesn’t seem to be desperate to move on.

It is hard to keep an unhappy player in the squad. When a player makes up his mind to go, as we’ve seen in England with the likes of Dimitri Payet at West Ham, he will go. People talk about clubs having the power, but players can always force the issue.

But it seems to register with Dembele that at this moment in time, Celtic Park is the best place for him to develop and improve for the foreseeable future.

Dembele’s playing regularly, the team are doing well, he’s a big game player as he’s proved with the goals he has scored and with a bit of luck he’ll be in the Champions League Group stages again.

When you put it like that, it’s easy to see why he thinks staying put will be beneficial for him. And he knows that when the time is right, he will be able to make his move providing he keeps applying himself as he has done to this point.

There must be clubs down south absolutely kicking themselves over this, thinking ‘there’s a guy we could have got for a nominal sum’ by their standards.

Perhaps there was apprehension because of his age and the fact he had only played in the Championship in England, but the game where he scored twice against Manchester City awakened everyone to his quality, and now Celtic have made it clear they will not settle for anything other than what they feel is his full market value when the time comes for him to move on.

He’s proven that he has the bottle for the big occasion – scoring the penalties against Astana and then Borussia Monchengladbach even after missing the one in Barcelona, the double against Manchester City and his goals against Rangers in the League Cup semi-final and the equaliser at Ibrox – the kid just seems to thrive off the pressure.

The quality of the team that is chasing Dembele means that his transfer fee, providing he stays clear of injury, could be any price. If anything, Dembele is going to be worth more and more if he maintains his level of performance.

There may have been some supporters who would have liked to have seen a little more transfer activity the other way, with players coming in early in preparation for the summer, but there’s no point in bringing in somebody at the moment if it is not the right person.

It would obviously be good to bed people in for the early Champions League qualifiers, and I think that Kouassi Eboue will benefit from that, but with the league sewn up already there was no need for any knee-jerk, panic signings.

Brendan Rodgers doesn’t need anyone for the domestic front, and even if he had lost Dembele and Gordon, Celtic would still go on and win the league at a canter and probably the treble too.

The fact that Dembele is still here, it augers well for the Champions League group stages and is far more important than anyone else coming in.

Celtic don’t need the money, and with the talent that Dembele has, his price is only going to escalate as each passing window comes.

He’s only going to improve at Celtic. It may come to a point where the player himself will push for a move, but it doesn’t seem to be in his thoughts at the moment.

So, the attitude of the player, the stance taken by the club and the fact they sent out a clear signal that they won’t be bullied into selling their best talent, was all hugely refreshing.