The superlatives have been exhausted for Celtic's rising star Odsonne Edouard.

Eulogising supporters have delivered effusive praise in unparalleled quantities in what is seemingly a coherent effort to drive his transfer value into the footballing stratosphere. 

Kieran Tierney remains the record sale at Celtic after moving to Arsenal for £25m last summer, but club legend Chris Sutton believes Edouard is worth a whopping £40m, per Daily Record.

It is difficult if not impossible to dispute his logic. It would be generous to say that Joelinton and Sebastien Haller, the two players who signed for Premier League clubs in £40m+ deals who Sutton notes in his column to justify his valuation of Edouard, have been underwhelming for their respective outfits this season, scoring just one and six league goals respectively. 

Naturally, those failures will influence the future decision-making of those individuals at the heart of the deals to bring Joelinton and Haller to English football, but a couple of sour tales are not going to transform the pattern of the market.

After all, natural goal scorers are typically the most sought-after and headline-dominating commodities in the game. The social media storm Borussia Dortmund sensation Erling Braut Haaland has created attests to the perennial interest prolific attackers can generate, while Celtic’s sale of Moussa Dembele for £20m has set a benchmark for those clubs scouting Edouard ahead of a summer move.

To place the narrative surrounding Edouard into context, Dembele scored eight goals in 23 SPFL games before he moved to France but the club’s insatiable talisman already has 19 in the league this season from one game less, while he has also surpassed his predecessor’s return of seven league assists. 

In total, he has already clocked up 23 goals and 16 assists across all competitions. It’s worth reminding at this point that he only turned 22 in January. Beyond his numbers, which are nothing less than remarkable and simply cannot be ignored by some of Europe's biggest clubs this summer, he offers a style of play which differs from the physical style of play Joelinton and Haller have found somewhat incompatible with the English top flight.

There appears to be no major fault in his game and, based on the standard of his stylish and imperious performances he has regularly delivered in Scotland, Sutton is absolutely right to suggest he has “almost everything”. 

With that said, it's fair to question whether Sutton's £40m valuation is actually underselling the true value of his ability. Scottish clubs have traditionally sold their most outstanding players at prices which are inherently dictated by the assumed disparity in quality between the SPFL and Europe’s elite leagues.

However, Dembele’s progress in France and Virgil van Dijk’s rise into the international elite suggest the risks of recruiting from the Scottish top light are not as pronounced as .

Given Southampton eventually sold van Dijk for £75m and Dembele was linked with a €50m (£42.2m) move to Manchester United in January, the Hoops have every right to stand their ground and hold out for a mammoth figure for Edouard - one exceeding the £40m proposed by by the Celtic icon in his recent column.

It will be intriguing to watch an inevitable transfer saga unfold this summer as Celtic prepare to confront the familiar prospect of selling their best player.

Whatever happens, though, it's about time the Hoops got a fair slice of the pie and receive a colossal fee for their truly generational talent.