CELTIC’S willingness to sell off their most influential players in recent seasons has, while proving hugely profitable financially, frustrated many of their supporters.

But Kenny Dalglish, their legendary former player and one-time caretaker manager, believes they have no reason to fear the key members of Ronny Deila’s side being off-loaded again this summer.

For Dalglish feels that Kieran Tierney, the 18-year-old left-back who has performed so well this season, is the only Celtic player who would be able to command a substantial fee from an English Premier League club.

“Celtic were sponsored by Southampton for a wee while there, weren’t they?” joked Dalglish on a visit to Glasgow to promote the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final between Celtic and Rangers this afternoon.

“Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster and Virgil van Dijk all went there. However, at the moment, I don’t see any current player, other than Kieran Tierney, that Celtic can trade in for decent money and they’d be better off keeping him.

“Equally, the current group of players would be better off staying at Parkhead. But I don’t think they have that choice. I don’t believe that anyone in the Premier League would come in for them.

“One or two of the current side are on loan, so they’re not Celtic’s players anyway. Apart from Tierney, [Tom} Rogic has kicked on a bit and somebody might have a look at Nir Bitton, but that’s about it.”

Dalglish has been impressed with how Tierney, who has been linked with a move to Liverpool and Southampton this season, has fared since forcing his way into the Celtic starting line-up and envisages him remaining there for the foreseeable future.

“Whatever course he is going to take, he will take,” he said. “But he is playing for Celtic, he is Celtic’s player, he will be well contracted, it won’t be easy to get him out the door. He loves the club, he has supported the club, he has been everywhere with them, so I don’t see too many pluses.”

The experiences of another player who will be involved in the Old Firm game at Hampden today, Rangers centre-half Danny Wilson, should perhaps serve as a reminder to Tierney to appreciate what he has at Celtic and not be too hasty to depart. The defender joined Liverpool in 2010 after just a season in the Rangers first team. He struggled to establish himself and was loaned out to Blackpool, Bristol City and Hearts before joining the Tynecastle club on a permanent basis in 2013.

Dalglish worked with Wilson briefly at Liverpool and has been pleased to see him resurrect his career at Hearts last season – he led the capital club to an emphatic Championship victory – and Rangers again this term.

“He’s a good player Danny, a good lad as well, decent fella,” he said. “He took a punt leaving Hearts to go to Rangers, a club he’d left.

“It didn’t quite work out for him at Liverpool, where it was going to be a hard job for him to break into the first team. You can’t stay somewhere where you’re not going to get a game. It was best for him to go, and he went.

“He did well at Hearts, won the league, went to Rangers, won the league again, so he’s not done too badly.”

It has been speculated that Leigh Griffiths, who took his tally for this campaign to 37 with a double against Motherwell last weekend, could attract interest from down south during the close season.

Dalglish, though, feels the player Celtic picked up for just £1 million at the start of 2014 will see out his career at Parkhead after signing an extension to his deal that keeps him there until 2021.

“He’s just signed a new contract, so why would he want to go anywhere else?” he said. “The fact that he went to Wolves and then came back up on loan with Hibs means that, for me, Celtic will be his last port of call.”

Dalglish operated in a different financial environment after his return to Celtic, initially as director of football in 1999. He oversaw the purchases of Eyal Berkovic for a Scottish record transfer fee of £5.75 million, Stiliyan Petrov for £2.8 million and, infamously, Rafael Scheidt for £5 million.

John Barnes, the former Liverpool star who he had recommended to the Celtic board to become manager, soon found the demands of the job too great. He was sacked after the catastrophic 3-1 defeat to then-part-timers Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Scottish Cup in 2000.

Reflecting on that period, Dalglish feels the leg break that first-choice striker Henrik Larsson suffered in a Uefa Cup game against Lyon in October was costly for both Barnes and Celtic.

“That was a huge downfall for Celtic that year,” he said. “He was only one guy, but he was a special guy. He was a focal point and was really important to the philosophies and principles that John had. He was exactly what Celtic wanted.

“We went to Aberdeen and won 5-0 in the first game. At the start of the season there was only big Jock [Stein] with a better record. So it didn’t start too badly. Then Henrik got a bad injury. That was huge, him getting injured. Would it have been different? Who knows? It is what it is.”

“John spoke really well, eloquently, about the football. The sessions that he put on were good, but whether it would have been any different or not who knows. He had a go. Unfortunately it wasn’t as successful as everybody wanted it to be.”

Kenny Dalglish was speaking at a William Hill media event. William Hill is the proud sponsor of the Scottish Cup.