Kieran Tierney WILL be back at Celtic after Brendan Rodgers confirmed the left-back has agreed a pre-contract agreement.

And the boss says in an 'ideal' world, they'll be able to get him back THIS month. It's been one of the worst-kept secrets in football that Tierney is heading back to Scotland with his deal at the Emirates up at the end of the season. And it's now been confirmed from the horse's mouth that the 27-year-old has agreed terms on a move back to Parkhead.

Now attentions turn to talks with Arsenal with Celtic hoping to bring him back for the remainder of this season on loan. Rodgers said at his press conference before Wednesday's clash with Aston Villa: "Ideally, it would (happen in January). But at this moment he’s still an Arsenal player. So I think everyone would agree that that will definitely take place in the summer. If we can do it beforehand, then great.

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“I don’t know. I think that, like I said, we’d prepared that for the summer. And I don’t want to speak too much on it, with the greatest respect, because he’s not a Celtic player here now with us. But, if we were able to do it, of course we would like to do that. But that’s out of our control at this moment in time.”

Rodgers confirmed that Valle won’t play for Celtic again with the defender set to join Italian outfit Como. He explained: “Alex won’t play again, sadly. He’s in Barcelona at the moment and he will probably then move onto another team. So, again, he’s another young player that’s contributed really well for us. He played nearly 20 appearances for us. He played in some very important games. He made his Champions League debut. Especially in Atalanta, he was fantastic.

“He played in really important games. So, we’re disappointed that he’s left. But we have to move on.”