Leicester City have leaned on their young analyst in this season's run to the FA Cup final against Chelsea.

Jack Lyons was first recruited by Foxes boss Brendan Rodgers when in charge of Celtic - at 19 years of age.

The Daily Mail reports Lyons was a football-obsessed university student studying to be a teacher — a teenager with an inquisitive mind and an interest in tactical analysis.

Rodgers had heard about him. He had seen some of his work on a German tactics website and had been impressed by the rare insight into how the modern game is played. He read some of his Celtic blog and was equally struck by its quality.

So Rodgers called him out of the blue and invited him to the club's training ground. Before long, he had given him a part-time job analysing Celtic's forthcoming opposition and writing reports.

"You could say it was unlike Brendan," said one source who knows Rodgers well. "He is meticulous and thinks everything through. But, equally, you could say it's very like him. He has an instinct for people. It's natural."

Nobody gets everything right but on this occasion Rodgers' instinct didn't fail him. Such was Lyons' impact at Celtic Park that not long after Rodgers left Scotland for Leicester a little over two years ago, he brought him to England.