Brendan Rodgers will not sanction the sale of Dedryck Boyata to Fulham as he seeks to guide Celtic through the UEFA Champions League qualifiers.

Having lost Patrick Roberts, Erik Sviatchenko and Stuart Armstrong, Celtic have brought in Odsonne Edouard and signed back-up goalkeeper Scott Bain on a permanent deal.

And given the lack of numbers coming in the door, Rodgers is reluctant to let another one out of it regardless of what that might mean in financial terms.

For Rodgers, losing his first choice defender at this juncture of the season would leave Celtic vulnerable as they seek to make it back into the group stages of the Champions League, a prize that comes with an estimated bounty of £30m.

And with the English transfer market closing at 5pm on Thursday evening, Rodgers did not feel confident that he would be in a position to replace Boyata had the defender made the switch to the Premier League.

“You get £10 million for Dedryck, as an example, but where do you then go and get another centre half off that?” said Rodgers. “One who would help you go get through this Champions League qualifying campaign and for the rest of the season.

“It has to make sense in every way and at this moment in time it doesn’t.

“For Dedryck, of course, he is in his last year so in six months’ time he can do a pre-contract with someone if he wants to move.

“My focus is on keeping the squad as strong as we possibly can at this moment. We are down on players.

“I think it’s one of those precarious situations where he is in the last year of his deal, but you also have to weigh up where it’s at and the importance of the competition and the importance of him to our team. Like I say, unless you have a replacement of equal quality, or better, which would be very, very difficult, then of course you can’t lose your best players at this time. It didn’t surprise me that there was interest in him, especially with his last 18 months and then his World Cup, but it shows you that he’s a good player who is rated highly but I will be really happy to keep him here.”

There was a feeling that Fulham were prepared to test Celtic’s resolve by increasing what was believed to be an initial £9m offer up to £12m, but Rodgers remains steadfast that allowing the player to leave the club without being able to replace him isn’t an option.

“It would have to be with a player to come in,” he stressed. “You just couldn’t possibly do that. You couldn’t move on one of your best players like that and not have a replacement to come in.

“There are players in the background, of course, but being so close to Thursday now, it would be very, very difficult to do that. It’s certainly not something I would be advocating.”

How Boyata reacts to that will be interesting, although Rodgers has backed the player to retain his focus.

“Maybe the club will have an agreement on it with him or his agent,” said Rodgers. “But he understands, he knows where it’s at.

“He’s not sitting on a four year contract, he’s in his last year. He’s a guy where it’s big figures we are talking about.

“He’s a sensible guy. He will have his focus back on his football.”