BRENDAN RODGERS has compared new Bhoy Moussa Dembele with Chelsea legend Didier Drogba.
The sensational 20-year-old French striker arrived from Fulham for a bargain £500,000 development fee in the summer.
Dembele netted twice against Manchester City in the 3-3 Champions League draw and Rodgers reckons the powerful youngster thrives on a challenge.
He also became the first ever Celtic player to score a hat-trick against the Sevco Rangers earlier in the month when Celtic won the first ever league match against the new club by 5-1.
The Celtic boss said: “I worked with Didier Drogba at Chelsea and I think he’s of that ilk.
“Moussa is still young. Didier came into Chelsea at 24 or something like that. This boy’s just turned 20. He’s still a baby. But he’s tough.
“You cans see on nights such as Wednesday that he is a big reference for the team.
“What I see in Moussa is that he’s a big-game player. He really comes alive on the big occasion.
“He has a belief. I think he said he wanted to be the world’s best player when he came in and so we shall see.
“He is making nice strides, isn’t he? There is still a way to go for him. I think he is a boy who can get to the top, but there are some things to work upon yet.
“Didier went onto do great things in his career. This boy is just starting out, has made brave steps and his brave boy to move away from Paris at 14 to London.”
Dembele’s early-season form has already attracted attention, but Rodgers insisted there will be no bargains at Parkhead.
He said: “Are you saying £15million? That’s his left toe! His value is what someone will pay for him. If he can show up like that in the big games, that’s your value.
”If I look at my history as a coach – without being arrogant – I develop players who naturally move on, but the focus is always on the collective.
“The great thing about Moussa’s situation is that there was a strategy behind him coming here in the beginning and that was through the cleverness of his agent and the responsibility and maturity of the player to know that he could go to other big clubs.
“You can see why he would go, but as a boy just turned 20 to perform like that against a top team shows you the potential that is there.”
