HE may have been unable to stop the most expensive player in football history from scoring or prevent his side slumping to their heaviest ever European defeat at home.

Yet, Brendan Rodgers still remains convinced Anthony Ralston, the 18-year-old right back who he started for Celtic in their opening Champions League group game against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night, has a bright future in the game ahead of him.

Ralston was run ragged by Neymar, who moved from Barcelona to Paris in a world record £198 million transfer this summer, during a difficult evening and was a bystander as the Brazilian forward opened the scoring in the first half.

The final 5-0 scoreline, meanwhile, did not reflect well on any of the defenders who played for the home team in the Group B match at Parkhead.

Rodgers, though, was impressed with how the teenager coped with the enormity of the occasion in general and the antagonistic and petulant antics of the superstar he had the unenviable task of marking specifically and believes how he conducted himself augurs well for the seasons to come.

Neymar held three fingers up at his opponent when the visitors were leading 3-0 shortly before half-time and then refused to shake his hand when the referee blew the whistle at the end of the 90 minutes.

Ralston, who originally hails from Bellshill, responded by giving his celebrated rival an earful of abuse on both occasions.

Rodgers feels those incidents show the Scot, who had only made six first team appearances, had managed to rile the South American and possesses the necessary attitude to make it at the highest level in the senior game.

“I didn’t see that until after the game when someone mentioned it to me,” he said. “One, I think it is probably a tribute to Tony and how well he did.

“That is why I played him. You can’t have shrinking violets in that arena and one thing he isn’t is a shrinking violet. He is an 18-year-old, he is a young guy, but he doesn’t play young.

“He is strong, he’s aggressive and I think with players, when I put them in when they are young, they need to have certain personality traits. When you put a young player in a Champions League game you have to know they are not going to sink. He never did that. He was competitive, aggressive, strong. He’ll take a huge lift from that.

“Professional pride gets hurt when you lose, but he is playing against one of the top five players in world football and actually the most expensive player in world football. The boy from Glasgow did alright.

“With young players you have got to throw them in. But it is about timing. If I thought he was going to get over-exposed, well, you have to be careful with that as well. It wasn’t just a blind risk. I felt he could do well in the game.”

Rodgers felt that Neymar had let himself down with his conduct and agreed with Mikael Lustig, his vice-captain, and that in order to be considered a true great, like his former Barcelona team mate Lionel Messi, he has to conduct himself with more dignity. “It would have been nice for a player of that standing and status to acknowledge it,” he said. “That is the true mark of a player sometimes.”

Taking positives from a home game in which your side has been outclassed and soundly beaten is not easy, but Rodgers felt the showings of both Ralston and his fellow full back Kieran Tierney against PSG were encouraging for Celtic.

“They were very good considering the level of the opponents,” he said. “(Kylian) Mbappe and Neymar are exceptional. PSG beat Barcelona 4-0 last year without those two.

“I thought Tony - for a young boy who came through the academy and was playing his first game at that level - did well. There were a lot of questions posed of him and there are always issues surrounding personality and whether young players can deal with it. But I always felt he could.

“When he walked off at the end of the game he’ll have come off a better player for the experience. Same as Kieran on the other side.”

Celtic suffered a humiliating 7-0 thrashing at the hands of Barcelona in their opening Champions League group game last season and recovered well to enjoy a successful campaign and Rodgers is confident his charges will not suffer any from the humbling at the hands of Saint-Germain

As he looked ahead to the Ladbrokes Premiership match against Ross County at Parkhead tomorrow, he said: “It won’t do that (dent the confidence) with the team. There is some background noise around it, but it’s my job, to shape that mentality and take the lead with the players. But they were bright in training today and back on it.”