Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers would 'love to keep top-class centre-half Dedryck Boyata'

Influential players such as Patrick Roberts and Stuart Armstrong have left, and others could follow. A bid is expected from Everton for Kieran Tierney, speculation continues to surround the future of Moussa Dembele, and then there is Dedryck Boyata, who looks certain to attract attention from other clubs after his impressive showings for Belgium at the World Cup.

The central defender is going into the final year of his contract at Celtic, and as yet, has not intimated that he will sign an extension to that deal. The question of whether the club push the boat out a little to keep the 27-year-old, given that replacing him with a similar quality of player may well be impossible within the limitations of their transfer budget, is an easy one for Rodgers to answer.

"If you look at the value of Dedryck - he has top level attributes,” Rodgers said. "Like every player, he won't be perfect in every game. But when I came in, I felt that if I could get him fit, he would do well.

"He missed the qualifying games and I was pretty clear with Dedryck. I told him how good I thought he could be - but he had to play to his strengths. He had to keep things simple and then he did well against Kilmarnock in a game.

"It was an evening kick off on the astro and then he sat out for a few games. But when we went to Dubai for a mid-season camp, he was fantastic.

"That's why training is so important. Dedryck showed he was ready to push on and he got into the team.

"You see in games like the England one that he is strong, quick and aggressive. When he's concentrated, he's a top-class centre half and he's at a good age. We would love to keep him.

“It’s not always the player, it’s always the player and the club. He’s at an age in his life where he’s made great strides I the last couple of years, he’s now in the position that he is, and Celtic have helped him get into that position. He’s also helped himself by playing to that level.

“Of course, any player naturally will have a think. Tom Rogic signed, Dedryck didn’t, but it didn’t change the relationship. If he’s training and working with Celtic I want him to be the best he can for Celtic.

“Hopefully he can get something organised with the club, because he would be a brilliant signing, but if not, then we have to wait and see on that.

"He has everything needed to be a top-class centre half. Whatever the thoughts were on Dedryck before the World Cup, he's added real value.

"People will sit up and take notice of his performances.”

The football food-chain dictates that any club is concerned about losing their top talent to the larger, wealthier fish in the water, but given the relatively small pond that Celtic operate in in terms of budget on a European scale, Rodgers recognises that replacing these players like-for-like will be a difficult task.

"It's quality I'm after,” he said. "We are not a team that needs recycling. This is a team that has grown, is developing and evolving. I just want to sprinkle it with quality.

"There is no doubt we need to replace first and foremost. We need to have the base of a strong squad and then, if we can add to that it would be important.

"I'm very happy with the players we have here but I also know that when you are doing really well, you always need to strengthen. Of course, we always want to add competition. That’s important. But it’s not easy because we don’t have the funds. If we are losing a player for say £20m, we’ve got to replace that.

“It’s not easy. We’ve got boys like Rogic who are fantastic talents. To bring in guys who are better than these, that costs money. That’s for the club really.”

Rodgers is constantly striving to improve his side, but even if he doesn’t lose any more of his stars, he says that bringing in players who can add to what he already has is hard enough under the budget constraints he has to work within.

“That’s the difficult thing for us,” he said. “Because for someone to come in over Callum McGregor, for example, that would cost a lot of money. To come in over Tom Rogic, Moussa Dembele or Odsonne Edouard or Leigh Griffiths, that costs money.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t improve. The club, as you know, that’s now how they’ve operated. It’s not how they work. My job is to maximise an invest coaching into the talents we have and make them the best we possibly can.

“Like we’ve seen with Stuart Armstrong, at times that means you’ll end up losing players. You are happy they are going onto different competitions and you’ve done your very best for them.

“So, it’s catch 22 really. The market now just gets away from you each year – especially the market we are in.”

So, just how do Celtic go about improving on what they have achieved over the last two trophy-laden seasons?

“What we can look at is two-fold,” Rodgers explained. “One, is the players that are here. I’ve seen development in a lot of the players. I still think there’s more within those.

“Callum McGregor, for example, I look at the authority and the confidence he plays with now to when I came in. There’s more to come from him as well.

“I think you can look at lots of players throughout the squad. We look at Jack Hendry, Kristoffer Ajer, Kieran Tierney, Olivier Ntcham, Odsonne Edouard. They are all very young. They are all developing talents and that really excites me in terms of how well they can do.

“But always with that you’ve got to be looking to bring in players to add. At the moment we have to replace. We’ve got two players out of the squad in terms of Stuart Armstrong and Patrick Roberts. They were very influential players for us. So, we need to replace them before we can think about adding to the squad.

“With the players that are here, there’s a lot of room for development because they are so young. Even the older players can always learn and develop.

“But you always want to bring in players that can keep us moving forward hopefully.”