The only surprise upon meeting Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive, is that his smile is cupped around a coffee-mug rather than a champagne flute. Given the way that everything is bubbling up for Celtic this season, the Parkhead chief executive would have been forgiven an indulgence; £30m of Champions League money banked, a League Cup in the cabinet and a sixth successive title on its way. Throw in a striker who cost £500k but who will reap Celtic their biggest ever return in the transfer market at some point and the picture luxuriates further.

Lawwell has become the most important voice in Scottish football. He is a man used to calling it right. And yet, this summer the appointment of Brendan Rodgers was a move that garnered not just ubiquitous approval among the Celtic support in a manner not seen since Martin O’Neill’s arrival in 2000, but is arguably one of the most important decisions that he will be involved in during his tenure at Celtic.

Criticised previously for what was perceived to be limited ambition, Celtic have appointed a manager whom they believe is capable of taking them firmly out of their own comfort zone. Installing Rodgers at the helm has changed the perception entirely in terms of the revenue committed to securing his services as well as the manner in which the club are prepared to back him.

Covetous eyes will always come with success but Lawwell is looking to engineer an ambition and aggression in Celtic that matches the hunger shared by their 43-year-old manager, a coach who has had a considerable impact in a short space of time.

“Our hope is that we stay together and we stay together for as long as we possibly can do,” said Lawwell. “We have committed to Brendan in terms of players and going forward our ambitions are as high as his. Expectations here will always be high. We want to dominate in Scotland for as long as we can and we want to get into the Champions League regularly and go as far as we possibly can in that. Brendan shares our vision. We strive to get better in every aspect on and off the park. If you stand still you go back the way so we are always, always looking to improve.

“He has caught the imagination of the supporters and he has the team motivated, playing like a team and doing exceptionally well. We are delighted. He is a top-class coach. He is intelligent, an all-rounder and you can see why he has managed at the top. He is loving it here himself. Even as a Celtic supporter looking from the outside in, the scale of the club, its ambition and the intensity of it has surprised even him. In some ways he has been re-energised as well in terms of having a young squad who are hungry, keen to learn which is maybe a wee bit different from the last few months at Liverpool. As a coach I think he is enjoying all of that.

“We feel again that when people leave here, they miss us. There are attractions in going elsewhere but we can be sufficiently attractive for Brendan and where he is at the moment and how he is enjoying it. Of course, there are never any guarantees in football but all that we can do is create an environment which is one that he enjoys and finds fulfilment and satisfaction in. He is certainly finding that at the moment. The plan is for us to ensure that remains that way in order that he stays with us.

Rodgers is not the only one whom Lawwell wants to keep. Moussa Dembele and the 17 goals that he has scored for Celtic this season across domestic and European football have catapulted the 20-year-old striker firmly to the forefront of the wanted list of clubs in both the English Premier League and further afield. There is inevitable interest in any player who shines in Champions League football and Celtic’s business model is one that successfully invites that.

Dembele, though, has been at Celtic for just five months. There have been a raft of scouts in attendance at Celtic Park to monitor the striker and there will be a point when the resolve of Celtic is tested in terms of maintaining the services of the Frenchman. The Parkhead side have banked near on £50m in the last four years from the sale of players to England and Dembele will, at one point, become the biggest transfer out of Scottish football. For the immediate future, though, Lawwell believes there should be no rush from either party to look too far ahead.

“It is very early for him,” said Lawwell. “Hopefully we have enough here to keep him. When we spoke to his agent, it was to his credit that he was not looking at the short-term but rather the medium-term. He could have got more money elsewhere but he wanted to work with Brendan, he wanted coached and he wanted to develop.

“He knew there would be a stage here and he wanted the chance to play rather than go somewhere else for money and maybe not get the same opportunities. That is our model and we have proved it already that it is a successful one; Fraser Forster, Virgil van Dijk, Gary Hooper, Victor Wanyama, Joe Ledley and Ki Sung Yeung all proved the formula. It is bringing players here who need to play, they need to get better and we create Champions League players. Inevitably if they do well we can’t compete with the wages.

“Ultimately the salary on offer down south is always going to make it attractive. We want to make sure that we can keep players as long as we can. We do not want to sell players but inevitably the attraction of huge salaries takes them away. Our job then is to get as much money as possible for them. But for the moment we want our best players here at the club and we want them here for as long as we can.”

While the likes of Wanyama and Virgil van Dijk have left Celtic for mid-level clubs, Dembele has been ear-marked for a move to a top four club when the time comes for him to kick on from Glasgow. Monitoring that development is important for Lawwell, who has successfully inserted sell-on clauses in contracts in order to maximise the return for Celtic.

“For us the important thing is that the majority have done really well,” he said. “They are at a level where they can perform in the Premier League. We need to make the breakthrough to top four and if we keep proving the model, showing that they can play down there then it won’t be long before we see some of the go to the very top clubs down there.

“They need to perform in the Champions League. There is a slight degree of looking down on Scottish football but I think we have proven that is not true. The players we have brought, found and developed have all done well down there. That gets its own momentum. I don’t think it will be long before we sell into the top four.”

Plenty to smile about, then.