If loan deals stand accused of being a sticking plaster solution to a long-term problem, Brendan Rodgers believes there is a sweetener that comes with it; Celtic have exposure to players they would normally be significantly priced out of competing for.

Jeremy Toljan joined an increasing list at Celtic this week. The Borussia Dortmund right-back is now among five players at the Parkhead side who are there on short-term deals from parent clubs.

Filip Benkovic, Timothy Weah, Oliver Burke and Daniel Arzani are the others but while it might seem a myopic approach given the hole they will leave at the end of the season, Rodgers has maintained that while he is wary of overindulging in loan deals it nevertheless offers a route to keeping the standard high without endangering the financial structure of the club.

As the perennial hunt for affordable quality in problematic positions will surely return this summer, it is difficult not to view the January window and the late acquisition of Toljan as symptomatic of Celtic’s issues in the market.

Unearthing suitable players at the right price is a challenge that has grown with each bloated window. Celtic’s strategy is clear but finding the right fit is not quite so straightforward.

“The availability of that type is not as easy as people think. ‘Just go and get a right back’, okay, but to get one above that level there will always be a premium to come to a club like Celtic,” said Rodgers. “So that is the dilemma. You bring in on a short-term loan a boy like this who we couldn’t buy, although there might be a possibility at the end of it. It’s always that Catch-22.

“Here there is always going to be that notion – and I’ve been here two and a half years – that you are always going to be in a rebuilding phase. That’s the reality, where it’s at.

“You’re going to have a group of loans of quality that with all due respect you can’t afford, you’ve got a group of core players that are here and then you are looking to them bring young players into it. It’s a constant. It’s a cycle. A couple of years cycle, players progress, they develop then they move on and it’s recycling it again and finding the ways to maintain the standards while you’re doing it.

“We had tracked Jeremy a while back but we couldn’t get him. There was no hunger from them [Dortmund] to want to do anything. He is a player that the recruitment team were aware of for some time but we felt it was outside of our reach and there was no desire from them to let him out in the summer. He is one that we have known about but probably didn’t think that we could get and thankfully the club has been able to do an agreement and the boy has made a sacrifice as well.

Weah signed a new contract with PSG immediately before boarding the place for Glasgow and West Brom are unlikely to write off the £15m they paid for Burke. Benkovic had barely unpacked his boots at Leicester than he was on the road to Glasgow and Toljan still has unfinished business in the Bundesliga.

But still, Rodgers, has alluded to the fact that in a general sense a positive loan deal can provide a decent sales pitch for players who may well find themselves in a position further down the line for an opportunity to move on a permanent deal with Celtic.

“I’m not against loans if they are high-quality loans,” said Rodgers. “You are advertising your club because maybe at some point – maybe not directly after, but at some point in the future – you can bring that player in because they have loved it so much.

“So you’d rather have them here to see that quality and let them feel it than not have them. It’s just a balancing act really because you can’t have too many loans because it disrupts it.”

And while the attitude of players who are not on permanent contracts with the club could be questioned, Rodgers believes the flip side of that is that players know they need to showcase what they have got if they wish to continue the upward trajectory of their career.

“There is a reason why they come here, the stature of the club, but they also know they can come and develop and play under pressure,” he said. “And if they show that and they come in here in the model that the club has, as young players, if they prove themselves here they’re always going to be in the shop window elsewhere. Then they get their offers of 70, 80, 90 grand a week. That’s impossible for Celtic to compete with.

“I am comfortable with the core group that we have here and the types of profile of the boys we have brought in. They are good guys, humble guys. They want to come in and work and work well and they know that if they want to do well in their careers they have to do well here.”