KIERAN TIERNEY is poised to return to first team action against Aberdeen at Pittodrie on Boxing Day
Celtic’s inspirational defender has missed the last four league games against Kilmarnock, Hibs, Motherwell and Dundee with Honduran international left-back Emilio Izaguirre deputising.
But Tierney, who has been suffering from a persistent hip problem, is ready to get the green light to face the Dons – and there could be a place in the squad, too, for Odsonne Edouard.
The £10million French striker limped off with a groin injury in the first-half of the 3-0 midweek triumph over Motherwell and sat out yesterday’s identical scoreline win over Dundee where stand-in Mikey Johnston was a stand-out with two goals.
Hoops boss Brendan Rodgers said: “We wanted to leave Kieran this week to recover. But, hopefully, he should be fine for next week’s two games.
ON WAY BACK…Odsonne Edouard in action before his injury against Motherwell.
“That’s also the plan for Odsonne. We just wanted to shut him down for a few days, let him rest and recover and he, Mikael Lustig and Dedryck Boyata will all be back available for the games.”
The return of the Swede and the Belgian defenders is an added bonus for Rodgers as he prepares his squad for the trip to Pittodrie on Wednesday and Ibrox on Saturday.
Anthony Ralston has taken over the right-back spot in the absence of Lustig and scored the opener in the midweek 3-0 triumph over Motherwell in his first appearance of the campaign.
He impressed Rodgers with his energy levels and was excellent again yesterday in the 3-0 win over Dundee where he was most unfortunate not to get on the scoresheet again.
Ralston rattled a low shot off the woodwork near the end and was also thwarted on a couple of occasions by an alert keeper in Jack Hamilton.
