By Scottish standards at least, Celtic have already flexed their financial muscle in these opening days of the January transfer window.

The £2.8m move for 19-year-old Ivorian Kouassi Eboue seems like an early show of strength from Celtic, who have banked more than £25m from their involvement in the UEFA Champions League group stages this season.

With a deal agreed between the clubs, 6ft 1 inch Eboue looks certain to become Brendan Rodgers’ first signing of the January transfer window.

And while the money involved for the player who has been playing his football with Krasnodar this season in the Russian top flight may seem like small change to the eye-watering amounts that will change hands in the English Premier League over the coming weeks, Rodgers has no issue with the financial parameters he is working within at Celtic.

And the Hoops boss has insisted that he will not squander any of the money that he is given to strengthen his side.

“The club have been absolutely brilliant in terms of all the staff,” Rodgers told radio station TalkSport. “They don’t have the money up here. Celtic get a couple of million a year from TV money – down there you are getting £100m if you finish bottom. So absolutely every penny that we get in here at Celtic has to be worked for.”

Rodgers has spent wisely already in his opening period at Celtic, with Scott Sinclair and Moussa Dembele particularly pivotal to the aggressive. Attacking way that the Parkhead side have played.

Dembele has 19 goals so far this season as well as a host of admiring clubs while Sinclair is sitting on 12 goals with a clutch of assists.

If the deal for Eboue goes through, it will be the second biggest outlay of Rodgers regime; Sinclair has been the biggest at £3.5m, but Dembele cost the club just £500k, while Kolo Toure was free. Dorus de Vries was an undisclosed amount while Cristian Gamboa arrived from West Bromwich for £1m.

At Celtic’s recent AGM, Rodgers quipped tongue-in-cheek that the biggest difference between working at Celtic and Liverpool was the money, he has insisted that he loves nothing better than getting his hands dirty on the training pitch.

Such assertions have been backed up this season with Stuart Armstrong massively improved to the point where a player who was on the periphery last season has become a mainstay in a competitive midfield.

Scott Brown will be in the running for the Player of the Year awards while James Forrest has shown in patches the form of which he is capable of.

“There is a real unity here at Celtic and that makes for an integrity within the club because everyone understands what we are trying to do,” said Rodgers. “We are trying to go down a different route and for me not having loads of money to go out and buy the big players means a real chance to get back on the training field and really go out and work with players and try to improve them and influence the club. That has been exciting for me.

“I had the chance to stay in the Premier League but I felt I needed to come away from it. I wanted to look at the coaching and management side of things. I am very much an on-field coach and I want to develop and improve players. I have come to a great club, one of the great clubs in the world.

“I really enjoy the element of working daily with players, especially some of the young players. It is great when you see the development of them. Young Patrick [Roberts] took himself away from Man City and he is a big talent. Moussa and his agent could have went somewhere else for a lot more money but there are still parts of his game that he can improve. He wanted to go and develop but he wanted to do it in a pressurised situation and anyone who knows anything about Celtic will tell you that we are expected to win every game, we are expected to deliver trophies.

“There are other guys here who are developing so well. Stuart Armstrong has been performing at a really good level and Scott Brown has also been exceptional this season. His performances both domestically and in Europe have been a real high level and that is great for Celtic to see players develop and improve.”