Daniel Arzani won’t be part of the Celtic squad that heads to Austria and Switzerland for three pre-season matches.
The winger is in the final stages of recovering from ACL surgery and will travel to Manchester while Neil Lennon’s squad get ready for action.
Arzani only lasted a couple of minutes of his debut at Dundee in October before he had to be substituted but is confident that he is in the final stages of his rehabilitation.
“I’m not quite ready,” he told the Evening Times. “I’m going to be on my own doing rehab this week. Then next week, when the boys go to Austria, I’m going to Manchester to do my final tests to see that everything is matching up in both legs. If everything goes to plan, hopefully after that I’ll be training.
“At the moment, with where my heads at, I’m just focusing on getting my body right now, feeling good again, feeling that I’m not scared about changing direction or anything. I just want to play. I’ll focus on that after.
“I just want that one full game first. Firstly, I need to get back into training and so well and having the gaffer’s faith in me to put me on.”
Arzani featured as a substitute for Australia at the World Cup Finals in Russia last summer and agreed a two year loan with Celtic almost as soon as he joined Manchester City from Melbourne City.
Celtic play Pinkfeld on June 26 then Wiener SC three days later before switching to Switzerland and a match against St Gallen on July 2.
After that Lennon’s squad will return to Glasgow to prepare for the first round Champions League qualifier against Sarajevo with an announcement expected this morning over whether the first leg will be played at home or away.
At 11am this morning the draw will be made for the second qualifying round, if Celtic lose to Sarajevo they will go straight into the third qualifying round of the Europa League.
89 min England 1-0 France (France missed two penalties
FT England 1-2 France oh la lahttps://t.co/VxUjfZdfYV— Joe McHugh (@videocelts) June 19, 2019
