CELTIC manager Brendan Rodgers admits the loan market is fast becoming the only way for his club to access the best of Europe’s young talents, with clubs from major leagues snapping them up as early as 10 years of age.

Far from being despondent about accepting Celtic’s place in the food chain as a development stop for young prospects in the grand scheme of Europe’s top clubs, Rodgers believes they have to embrace it. The approach has allowed talents such as Patrick Roberts, and now Charly Musonda, to spend extended periods of time at Celtic, when they would otherwise have been out of their financial reach.

“We have to look at that market,” Rodgers said. “With Charly and Pat there were English Premier League clubs interested. We have every right to want to be in that market too. Those club will look after the talents, put them on big contracts, so you can’t buy them. If you have an opportunity to take that talent on loan, then I think it’s great.

“You find that with a lot of the big clubs. There is a player strategy around that. When they become available it can work for you.

“What has happened over the last five years in particular, is that clubs are having to get the players younger.

“Agents are on to players younger now, because the rules have slackened around that, governance around kids being moved so young.

“Clubs are looking at players younger and more seriously. Because they know that once they lose that player that’s it. Even at 10, 11, 12.

"It’s obviously very difficult for young players to get an opportunity in the English Premier League, but that shouldn’t stop you wanting to have them.”

Of course, it still isn’t a simple a matter to persuade these top clubs that Celtic should be the ones entrusted with the next stage in the development of what could be multi-million pound assets for them. But that is where Rodgers’ background and reputation for working with younger players proves so valuable.

“I have been managing for nearly 10 years now, so people know the profile or the brand of football,” he said. “My background was in youth development for 15 years and over the course of my time in management I have shown the faith both in youth and senior players.

“There is also a certain style of football that these players have to be developed in. If you are a big club you need to know that your players can play a certain way. You then pick and choose where the players go.

“When a player is coming to me at Celtic the [parent] club knows the method, the football idea and the developmental cycle the players will come into. So hopefully that helps Celtic.”