Christie is an Inverness youth product
Celtic bid for Ryan Christie from Inverness Caledonian Thistle
Celtic have made an offer in the region of £500,000 for Inverness Caledonian Thistle midfielder Ryan Christie.
And the Scottish champions are willing to loan the player back to their Scottish Premiership rivals until the end of the season.
Caley Thistle manager John Hughes had earlier said he could not afford to let the 20-year-old leave immediately but was an open to a sale with a loan back.
"We have to do what's right for Inverness," he told Golsicilia.it Scotland.
"We are a selling club, no doubt about that, and we would never step in anybody's way. It would be the same with Ryan Christie.
"But, right at this moment in time, he's under contract to Inverness and long may that continue.
"The ideal scenario would be, if he ever did move, we would try to keep him here just to buy ourselves some time and keep that quality at the club."
John Hughes' squad has been badly hit by injuries already this season
Caley Thistle's injury troubles deepened this week with the news that winger Aaron Doran is likely to miss the rest of the season with a knee injury.
He joins Dean Brill, Richie Foran, Josh Meekings, Greg Tansey, James Vincent and Gary Warren as long-term absentees.
Hughes does not want to contemplate the loss of Christie as well but said he expects clubs around the country, including England, to be "sniffing about him".
Christie, whose contract runs until May 2016 with an option for the club to extend for a further year, has already played for Scotland Under-21s and his manager has tipped him to win senior caps in the future.
The Inverness-born player, the son of former Caley Thistle manager and player Charlie Christie, who himself played for Celtic, was awarded Scottish Football Writers' Association Young Player of the Year after helping the club win the Scottish Cup for the first time and finish third in the Premiership last season.
"For someone with that technique and talent of Ryan and now cementing his place on a regular basis in the first team, he is doing very well and holding his own," added Hughes.