Mark Wilson believes Celtic owe it to Karamoko Dembele and their supporters to give the teenager a run of matches to prove his worth.
The 18-year-old is the most highly-touted player to emerge from Scotland in years but the attacker has struggled for game time this season with just over a year remaining on his current deal.
Lesser-spotted Dembele climbed off the bench against Aberdeen midweek to make only his third appearance of the season.
The England youth international has been linked with moves away from Celtic as the deposed Premiership champions face their biggest rebuild in a generation.
But Wilson believes Dembele deserves a run of games to show fans if he was what it takes rather than drifting away from the club without ever really getting a chance to prove his worth.
Speaking to Superscoreboard, he said: "I've seen boys who have been held back because they have had a player of such ability ahead of them keeping them out of the side and they can't get in, that's fair enough.
"The argument to that, Celtic, in meaningless games, they haven't had outstanding creative players that have kept a world beater, a potential world beater out.
"It's hard to know, I would like to have watched him to make the decision ourselves to watch him and go 'well, he's not quite what we thought'.
" John Kennedy, Neil Lennon have obviously had a large squad, particularly in that position and they've thought he's not been good enough to break in.
"We need to see the kid some time, hopefully he doesn't drift out.
"I was there with the boy Feruz, I played a reserve game with, he was outstanding, he played in front of me but he went down the road never to be seen again and I just hope that doesn't happen with Dembele. "
