Anthony Stokes will have a full week to prepare for his Celtic debut against Hearts after being suspended for Ireland’s u-21 clash with Turkey tomorrow night.
The Celtic striker picked up his second yellow card of the campaign on Friday night when Ireland lost 1-0 to group winners Switzerland.
That was his second booking of the campaign and rules the striker out of tomorrow’s match in Kocaeli.
Stokes’ arrival will give Neil Lennon plenty of options to consider with Gary Hooper likely to be available after injury and Darly Murphy scoring on his first start at Motherwell.
Fellow Celt Richie Towell made his u-21 debut in the defeat from Switzerland with Adam Rooney of Inverness Caley Thistle earning his eighth cap as a late substitute for Stokes.
Elsewhere Efrain Juarez probably had the strangest experience of the Celts on international duty with Mexico losing at home to Ecador on Friday night.
Less than 5,000 fans turned up at the 48,000 capacity Omnilife Stadium to watch the match on artificial turf.
Juarez had to wait until the 76th minute to replace Pablo Barerra with Mexico already trailing 2-1.
With Mexico facing Columbia in the early hours of Wednesday morning it’s likely that Juarez will be on the bench for the Hearts match after making the journey from Mexico to Glasgow via London 24 hours behind his team-mates.
Follow Video Celts on Twitter and Facebook
stokes is a good player cant wait to see him play against hearts and i think juarez should play every game for celtic he is one of the best players we have ok let him be on the bench against hearts becouse he will be playing for mexico on wedensday even the last two games he dident start he was on the bench lennon must have his reasons but i dident understand the way he played the team the last couple of games but it seems to work so keep up the good work lennon hail hail