OLIVIER Ntcham has endorsed the idea of Odsonne Edouard strengthening Celtic’s French connection by making a permanent move to the Scottish champions.

The Celtic midfielder believes his compatriot, who is on loan from Paris Saint Germain until the end of the season, would be best served by agreeing to join Brendan Rodgers’ side in the summer.

Celtic manager Rodgers has already stated he wants to make Edouard’s deal permanent. The 20-year-old striker has scored nine times for Celtic, including the Ladbrokes Premiership winner against Rangers at Ibrox in March.

Ntcham made a £4.5 million move to Celtic last summer from Manchester City after watching how his French Under-21 colleague, Moussa Dembele, thrived after being bought by Rodgers in 2016. Dembele turned into a serial scorer against Rangers, and also netted in that 3-2 Ibrox win, as well as the 4-0 Scottish Cup semi-final victory in which Dembele and Ntcham both scored penalties.

“For me, Odsonne is a very good player and the more he plays the more he improves,” said Ntcham. “He is happy here. I won’t try to persuade him because he is his own man. But he knows how I feel. It helps to have fellow French players."

Ntcham’s penalty at Hampden, which sealed the rout, was his eighth goal for Celtic.

“I was really happy because it was my first goal against Rangers and you never forget that,” he said.

“Moussa’s penalty was very confident but he told me he would do that before. For the fans it is more emotional to see a goal against Rangers, because it is not just about football it is about something else.”

The midfielder is hoping to clinch his first career title today, to compensate for last week’s disappointment at Hibernian.

“We were a bit disappointed,” said Ntcham. “It was a tough game and it would have been great for the club and the players. Now this is a game we need to win and we want to win the titles. It will be nice to do it at home because you have the 12th man, the supporters all behind you. For me, the first year has been quite good. Every game I am feeling my progression.”