There's a huge dent in a half-inflated beach ball. The stadium erupts, and as a dazed Joey Barton gasps for air, staring wide-eyed at the clouds laid flat on his back, a jubilant Moussa Dembele runs towards the south-west corner of Celtic Park with his thumb, index and middle fingers pointing to the sky.

The young Frenchman - aged just 20 years old - has just bagged a hat-trick on derby day in Glasgow, becoming the first player to do so in a league encounter since Stevie Chalmers over 50 years prior.  After receiving a high ball from the right flank with the deftest of touches on his preferred foot, Dembele rolled the ball onto his left, allowed it to bounce and then struck low and hard across the goalkeeper.

Barton's attempted outstretched block saw him drift right past the striker like a sliding door as the shot thundered over the line, its momentum halted ever-so-slightly on its way into the far corner of the net. And now there's a huge dent in a half-inflated beach ball.

READ MORE: 'I don't know': Adam Idah in firm Celtic transfer response

Looking back, it's hard to comprehend the unease that followed Dembele's inadvertent inclusion in Brendan Rodgers' starting 11 that afternoon in September 2016. And yet a similar feeling of malaise followed Adam Idah's loan transfer in January, when the move for the second (or maybe even third) string Norwich City striker appeared to come from nowhere.

Sydney van Hooijdonk was surely a better option, many posited, and if this big lad had struggled for first-team football down there, why were Celtic interested in him in the first place? Four months later, and it was the Irishman who scored the only goal in Celtic's league and cup double-winning Scottish Cup triumph at Hampden.

Ten days earlier, it was Idah who'd hit the Scottish champions' first in their 5-0 league title-clinching dismantling of Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. With all due respect to Big Pierre's son, comparisons between the two forwards during this timeline are futile. The numbers, after all, don't lie.

Back in 2016, Rodgers' then-preferred 4-3-2-1 formation facilitated a lone striker. And so when an in-form Leigh Griffiths was forced out through injury in the days leading up to the manager's first taste of the Glasgow Derby – the forward having netted 40 goals in 51 appearances the previous campaign under Ronny Deila – throwing the as-yet unproven and unestablished Dembele into the mix felt like a gamble.

If it was, it was one that paid off. Not only did Celtic overcome their city rivals 5-1 in a devastating performance at Celtic Park that sunny afternoon in the Scottish Premiership, the Frenchman hit the net with a perfect hat-trick – the first scored with his right, the second with his head, and the third, as illustrated above, with his left.

Dembele, of course, quickly became a fan favourite among the Paradise faithful thereafter, and his departure at the end of the summer transfer window of 2018 left a glaring hole in the Hoops' frontline.

Perhaps even more difficult to comprehend in hindsight is the fact Dembele could have signed for Tottenham Hotspur instead of Celtic, had it not been for a dedicated face-to-face rendezvous in West London with Rodgers. Having agreed terms to move from Fulham to the north of the city in the previous January transfer window, Dembele looked all but certain to join Mauricio Pochettino's Spurs that summer.

But as a free agent, the young forward had autonomy over his destiny, and after a reported two-and-a-half-hour visit – during which Rodgers explored the Frenchman's career to date, his ambitions, and the role the manager and Celtic could play in his future with meticulous precision – Dembele agreed to instead travel to the green half of Glasgow.

During the visit, Rodgers is said to have extolled his scope for developing players, citing the likes of Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge as among the elite-level stars whose skill sets he'd help hone while in charge of Liverpool.

Speaking after Celtic's thrilling 3-3 draw against Manchester City in the group stages of the 2016/17 UEFA Champions League campaign – on an evening that saw Dembele net a brace, in turn breaking Pep Guardiola then 100% win streak since joining City that summer – the manager even compared Dembele to one of the English Premier League's best-ever strikers.

He said: "I worked with Didier Drogba at Chelsea and I think Moussa’s of that ilk. He’s a big-game player and he has a belief. He is a boy who can get to the top but there are some things to work upon yet."

READ MORE: Why Celtic must proceed with caution over signing Adam Idah

Whether or not Dembele lived up to that promise on the pitch is a different conversation, and it's hardly a secret that he and Rodgers did not see eye-to-eye by the time the Frenchman left Celtic for Lyon ahead of the 2018/19 campaign.

But one thing throughout all of this is clear: Dembele bought into Rodgers' vision wholesale from the outset, and flourished during his time in Glasgow's east end. When you consider the marked strides the likes of James Forrest and Stuart Armstrong made under the Irishman's tutelage, not to mention Liam Scales this time around, the depth of Rodgers' man-management speaks for itself.

With Adam Idah, the same principles apply. Rodgers has of course already worked with the striker, but in the same way Scott Sinclair reunited with the Irishman with great results, if Rodgers sells Idah on his longer-term vision, who knows what the future holds for the Norwich City forward.

New manager Johannes Hoff Thorup appears keen to keep Idah on his books after the player's formidable four-month streak in green and white, but if a fee and wages can be agreed, I do wonder how much Rodgers' clairvoyance for the 23-year-old – trophies, Champions League football and all – could potentially influence the discussion. Idah himself at least seems interested in making a move north permanent, but I'd love to see the same silver-tongued approach from the manager in mentally mapping out the player's next steps.

Unlike Dembele all those years ago, of course, Idah has an affinity with Celtic and has already had a taste of everything that is involved. I can't say for sure how that feels for a young player keen to make his mark on the game – scoring a cup final-winning goal in the throes of one of the fiercest derbies in world football while being showered with praise from a ridiculously passionate fanbase – but that allure cannot be easy to overlook.

At the time of writing, Celtic are yet to make their first signing of the 2024 summer transfer window, but with positions to be filled all over the pitch, there is, naturally, work to be done. In an interview with Sky Sports, John Kennedy assured anxious supporters that the right people were moving diligently behind the scenes in the closing days of June, and I guess we'll have to take the assistant at his word.

All of which is to say: that if Idah ends up out of Celtic's reach for one reason or another, I hope the manager has the chance to repeat the same arm-around-the-shoulder routine with another capable forward player. 

When Neil Lennon signed Christopher Jullien in the summer of 2019, he did so by travelling from the club's pre-season camp in Austria to spend the day with the defender in France (on the then-Celtic manager's own birthday, no less), which again speaks volumes for literally going the extra mile and the power of in-person persuasion.

It's clearly a common manoeuvre for football managers. It just so happens that Brendan Rodgers appears to be very good at it.