Jonny Hayes has said it is likely he would have stayed at Aberdeen if Brendan Rodgers had not come calling.

The winger is settling into life at his new club and said he was well aware he faced real competition for a place in Celtic's team before joining.

That task was more appealing, the Irishman said, than offers from English clubs he had no real interest in exploring.

"I knew it was going to be a tough task before I signed," Hayes said.

"I could have maybe taken the easy option of going down to England [but] I always thought it was going to be a bigger task for myself here to get into an invincible team and it was a challenge for me and a bigger challenge than going down to England, playing 40 games a season where you could end up mid-table, not go anywhere and it's just another year gone by.

"Here there's a bigger chance to win trophies and individually it's a bigger task to try and break in."

He added: "We could have gone down to England but as soon as my agent told me about Celtic we knew we wanted to come here.

"It took a bit longer than we thought but we only ever had the mindset of coming here.

"If England was [the only option] then to be perfectly honest I would have preferred to stay at Aberdeen than go to some place in England.

"Coming here was a challenge that I couldn't turn down."

The winger came off the bench to make his league debut for his new side against Hearts on Sunday but looks likely to see his fair share of the action as Celtic face a busy schedule in the weeks to come.

Last season's treble winners begin their defence of the League Cup on Tuesday against Kilmarnock before facing Partick Thistle on league duty three days later.

Celtic then face Astana in their two-legged Champions League play-off either side of an away match at Rugby Park in the league.

A home game against St Johnstone completes a run of eight competitive fixtures in August.