Brendan Rodgers says Celtic must carefully manage Kieran Tierney's fitness as pre-season preparations are ramped up.
The left-back has a history of serious injuries throughout his career.
Tierney will likely feature for the first time since his long-awaited Parkhead return when his side take on Estrela da Amadora in a behind-closed-doors friendly in Portugal this Saturday.
Ahead of the match, boss Rodgers has been speaking about the 28-year-old and his fitness levels: "Kieran was fantastic in my first time here," he said [RecordSport].
"He's gone away and gained a lot of experience and maturity.
"We also want to manage him because he's had a lot of troubles in his fitness history over the last few years, but it's great to have him back.
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"You see that power and I know he's so excited about being back. Like I say, he's only in the building, but he's going to get up to speed.
"You see that competitiveness that he has and he's doing really well."
Tierney and several other Celtic first teamers didn't feature in Tuesday evening's friendly with Cork City.
New signing Hayato Inamura came in at left-back, though, and very much impressed.
Rodgers initially said he wasn't for the first team, but that verdict has since altered: "I'm not fixed on it," he said.
"The feeling from us all was, okay, we'll bring him in and see how he does pre-season, thinking that he may need to get out and play.
"But I always judge players in the pre-season on how they look and are they going to be capable.
"He's certainly shown in the few days training he's so smooth with the ball. Not only that, he plays forward.
"When you play for Celtic or any of the big clubs, you have to pass the ball forward.
"You've got to have the personality to take the ball and play and he has that.
"I've got to say, he surprised me. We knew that he was going to come in and I felt that maybe it was going to be a bit more settling in for him and maybe alone or whatever, but we'll see how he works.
"He's obviously not been playing that long.
"I think we see that with the Japanese boys, they go through university and they're not actually professionals until they're 23, 24.
"So he's late into the game and then it's always about the adaption and how he comes across.
"But in these first days training, he's so competent with the ball. He's a good size.
"He'll need to develop physically, that's natural when you come into European football.
"But his comfort on the ball, his willingness to attack is really good. So we'll see how he looks over the remaining games."
