Luis Palma is Celtic guile guy as agent hopes he'll ease the load for Honduran stars with heavy passports

Luis Palma has been tipped to open the floodgates for budding Honduran stars with his burgeoning talent.

And former Celtic hero Simon Donnelly is convinced he can be a smash hit for the champions as he offers the guile that can complement the searing pace of his team-mates. Palma is back at Parkhead ready to launch stage two of his career in Glasgow and the initial signs were highly encouraging.

Arriving just before the close of the summer window, the 23-year-old was an unused sub in the win over Rangers at Ibrox and had to wait to make his debut off the bench against Dundee after the first international break of the season. Boss Brendan Rodgers then displayed his faith in the new recruit when dishing out a first start for the club in the Champions League encounter against Feyenoord in Rotterdam three days later. Palma notched his maiden Hoops strike against Motherwell at Fir Park the next weekend and has just kept building on the promise.

Although his Champions League effort against Lazio was ruled out for offside by VAR, the attacker’s terrific hit against Kilmarnock made it two in two Premiership games before he headed off to join Honduras on national-team duty. Palma is now back and a strong contender to start against Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday as Rodgers’ men aim to extend their winning run in the Premiership and cement their position at the top of the table.

Those early performances since his £3.5million switch from Greek side Aris have impressed the Celtic support and Donnelly sees an individual capable of offering variety in a key area. Speedsters such as Daizen Maeda, the injured Liel Abada and South Korean Yang Hyun-jun are also options on the flanks for Rodgers, while Kyogo Furuhashi is lightning quick up