Brendan Rodgers has made it clear that Luis Palma still holds a place in his plans at Celtic, despite the player's recent struggles for playing time.

Palma turned heads during a friendly match against Sligo Rovers on Wednesday, where he scored an impressive hat-trick to secure a 3-2 victory for the Scottish champions.

This standout performance serves as a timely reminder of his potential, especially since he has faced multiple challenges in breaking into the first XI.

So far this season, the 24-year-old winger has only made one start in the Scottish League Cup against Falkirk and has had very limited appearances as a substitute.

The £3million recruit has been linked with a possible transfer exit in January. 

However, Rodgers still holds the belief that Palma has talented that can be "really good" for Celtic across a hectic fixture schedule, and maintained that he has a role to play in the immediate future. 

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Discussing Palma's impressive contribution over in Ireland and the Honduran international's fate at Celtic, Rodgers said: “It's one of those ones where I think for all players, all players want to play. But I'm only really concentrating on this next period.

"We've got a really busy period until January. I know I'll need all the players.

“We've just come off a game of a run there of seven games in 23 days and there's going to be times where we're playing every two or three days and we need that energy.

"Sometimes that won't be there like we had against Ross County in the first half but that will be the case in some other games. We need players to come off the bench, bring that energy and Luis is definitely one of those players that can do that for us.

(Image: SNS) “I was really pleased for him the other night. He took his goals really well, especially the last two, where he really got into the areas at the second point where we want him to get into.

“He worked hard, but that’s not an area that there's any doubt with. You have to do the work, but that was a nice exercise for him. He wanted to stay in the international break to get the work in and obviously playing this game and it's been a nice reward for him.

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“It's just about not forcing it. I think sometimes the thing with wingers is, when other players are in the team and scoring and creating goals, you feel you really want to come in and force it a little bit. I think sometimes that's what's happened with Luis.

“He's a very good technician and when he plays for the team and works hard and presses well then he can be a really good player.”