Arsenal left-back Kieran Tierney is on the verge of agreeing a pre-contract with Celtic to seal an emotional return to the Scottish Premiership champions.

Tierney, 27, is out of contract at the Emirates Stadium in the summer and has been free to talk to clubs about moving as a free agent for the 2025/26 season. He turned down opportunities to pursue a move abroad or to stay in the Premier League in favour of a return to Parkhead.

German champions Bayer Leverkusen, Sevilla in Spain and Italian giants Juventus were interested in taking the Scotland international without a fee in the summer. Everton also showed an interest as they look to bolster David Moyes’s left-back options.

But Tierney has now moved close to re-signing for Celtic, having left them six years ago for Arsenal in a £25 million move. It still remains to be seen what Arsenal’s plans are for the rest of the season, with Tierney making three appearances in January. Their other left-back options include Jakub Kiwior, Riccardo Calafiori and Oleksandr Zinchenko.

Tierney endured injury frustration at times under Mikel Arteta, who took over from Unai Emery in Tierney’s first season in English football, and recently had six months out with hamstring problems suffered at Euro 2024.

Arteta used Tierney further advanced on the pitch when he returned from injury, saying: “He’s playing to his strengths. That’s something that we have to continue to learn, because they give you a lot of information. They tell you, not sometimes with their words, but with a lot of information, where they feel more comfortable and certainly there is a much better fit for him.”

In his first spell at Celtic, he graduated from their academy before making his first-team breakthrough in 2015 and going onto win four titles and two Scottish Cups. Brendan Rodgers has discussed his January plans for Celtic but remained tight-lipped on Tierney’s return.

“Kieran was an instrumental part of a really, really successful period when I was here,” Rodgers said. “His talents then took him to another challenge but we’ll be linked with lots of names and with Kieran naturally because of his situation. But we’ll only talk about a player once he’s signed.”