Celtic kick off their Scottish Premiership campaign in just under two weeks as they host Ross County at Parkhead on the opening day.
Who have Celtic signed this summer?
Hoops supporters could see a number of new faces on the pitch as Brendan Rodgers has been able to bring in four signings so far during the summer transfer window.
Odin Thiago Holm, Marco Tilio, Hyeok-kyu Kwon, and Hyun-jun Yang have all arrived in Scotland on permanent deals. However, none of them have experience at this level and it remains to be seen if they will be upgrades on what the Northern Irish head coach already had in the building.
One way in which the ex-Liverpool boss could almost be guaranteed to improve his team would be to land former left-back Kieran Tierney on loan from Arsenal.
The Scottish Sun reported that the £120k-per-week defender would be willing to consider a return to Parkhead this summer as he is weighing up whether or not to leave the Gunners on a temporary basis.
How long was Kieran Tierney at Celtic?
Tierney made first-team appearances across five seasons for the club after coming through the academy set-up and would, therefore, arrive as a player with a proven track record with five league titles under his belt.
The Scotland international could come in as an upgrade on current left-back Greg Taylor due to the attacking quality he could provide in the Premiership and his defensive ability in European competitions.
Firstly, the now-Arsenal ace caught the eye with 4.7 tackles and interceptions combined per game across six Champions League matches during the 2017/18 campaign for Celtic, which shows that the talented battler was able to constantly disrupt the opposition's flow to win the ball back for his team.
Whereas, Taylor managed 3.5 per match for the Hoops in that tournament last term and Matt O'Riley (4.8) was the only player in any position to manage more than the former Bhoys star did during his last season with the club at that level.
This suggests that Tierney has the defensive awareness and strength to potentially be Rodgers' outstanding option at the back when it comes to playing the big matches in Europe, particularly when you consider that he was the manager in charge of the left-back at that point.
The 26-year-old dynamo could also provide more creativity to produce chances for his teammates than Taylor from that position as the bombarding talent caught the eye with his attacking play under the current Celtic boss during their time together.
Tierney, who teammate Oleksandr Zinchenko hailed as "amazing", assisted 25 goals across 97 Premiership outings and 37 in 170 appearances across all competitions for the club, which means that he set up a goal every 3.88 league matches on average throughout his spell in Scotland.
On the other hand, Taylor has racked up 20 assists in 181 Premiership games over the course of his career and 20 in 127 clashes for Celtic across all competitions – an average of one assist every 6.35 outings for the Bhoys.
Therefore, Rodgers could instantly improve his team by bringing the Arsenal defender back to Paradise this summer as his play in and out of possession, as a proven performer for the Hoops, could make him a big upgrade on the current first-choice.
