Steve Clarke has weighed in on Kieran Tierney's Celtic return.
The left-back has agreed on a pre-contract that will see him rejoin his boyhood club this summer.
In the Scotland squad for a duo of upcoming friendlies against Iceland and Liechtenstein, Tierney is set to make his 50th cap for the national team.
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Speaking ahead of the Iceland clash, manager Clarke weighed in on Tierney, his improving fitness, and impending Celtic move.
He said: "I think more recently, it's been the injury situation with Kieran. The one last summer stopped him having more regular game-time. The six months before that, he'd been in Spain with [Real] Sociedad and done really well.
"And it was good at Arsenal that he stayed and ended up the way it ended up, by getting back in the team, getting regular minutes off the bench. He keeps telling me I've got to put him forward for set-plays because he scored a goal from one in his last game against Southampton!
"Listen, Kieran's happy to be coming back up to Scotland to play [for Celtic]. If Kieran's happy, then I'm happy.
"Obviously, he’s shown over his career that he’s a top, top player. We’re lucky to have him. In recent years, he’s had one or two little injury issues that has probably restricted his number of caps. But he was one of those players that we identified very early when I remember going down to meet him in London after he just moved to Arsenal to speak to him about his role within the squad and what we expected of him.
"Since then, we’ve built a really good relationship. So we should be grateful that we’ve got him and hopefully he doesn’t stop at 50 and the caps keep coming because that’s what I set out to do was to cap a number of players that would be the core of this squad moving forward.
"And so many players in the squad now have made over 50 caps. Kieran is just another one to add to that."
