Peak Brendan Rodgers has Celtic dabbling in the unforeseen and it's time to deal in their biggest asset – Hugh Keevins

Celtic have started to dabble in the unforeseen.

This is bad news for their Premiership rivals who know only too well what they are looking at so far as Brendan Rodgers’ side are concerned. Nobody saw it coming when Celtic took six goals off Aberdeen in the Premier Sports Cup semi-final at Hampden last weekend. And the only man I know who tipped Celtic to beat RB Leipzig 3-1 in the Champions League on Tuesday night was the radio caller who told me that would be the final score an hour before kick-off.

I can only hope he had a sensible wager. If it was bravado rather than belief then he still deserves a pay-out for having the courage of his convictions. But what price Celtic’s hierarchy now taking a punt on Rodgers’ future? The manager was rich in his praise of the players after Celtic delivered a display for the ages against their highly-rated German opponents. He went through the card in his menu of meaningful words to adequately describe his team’s performance.

Courage. Charisma. Confidence. Vibrancy. Rodgers would have been entitled to throw in a congratulatory mention for himself – but modesty forbids and all that. The man who was told he needed to be more pragmatic in Europe after a seven-goal going-over from Borussia Dortmund has had the satisfaction of holding his nerve.

He has proven that rumours of his unsuitability for the elite level of the game were unfounded. Rodgers is the highest-paid manager in Celtic’s history but, whatever he’s getting, it’s arguably not enough going forward. Who, at the end of his current contract next season, could replace Rodgers and offer the same guarantee of domestic domination and European respectability?

It was Celtic’s extreme good fortune that he was available to fill the