Scotland defender Kieran Tierney out for up to six weeks

Scotland defender Kieran Tierney faces up to six weeks on the sidelines with a knee injury but should be fit ahead of the European Championships.

Tierney’s club Arsenal has revealed that the Scot has suffered ligament damage to his knee but that the injury will not require surgery.

After fears that he would be ruled out for the remainder of the Premier League season, and possibly miss the Euros, it’s now expected that he will be back in full training “within four to six weeks”.

If all goes to plan, that would see the left-sided defender back in action well ahead of Scotland’s pre-Euro 2020 warm-up games against Luxembourg and Netherlands in early June.

“We have to make sure first that he doesn’t need any surgery, which it doesn’t look like,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said..

“The timeframe will be that (up to six weeks). It could have been worse because the action looks quite scary, but he looks a bit better and the damage was not that bad, so at the end of the day it is not the bad news we could have been waiting for.

“We are going to have to go day by day and see how Kieran is feeling, then when he gets close to playing time and how he is feeling we will make that decision.”

Tierney has become a key player in Steve Clarke’s Scotland team, playing on the left side of a three-man defence with captain Andy Robertson in a wing-back role.

The former Celtic star caught the eye in the last international break with strong performances against Austria and Israel, followed by a hat-trick of assists in the 4-0 win over Faroe Islands.

Scotland’s men’s team will begin their first major finals since 1998 with a match against Czech Republic at Hampden on June 13, followed by a trip to Wembley to tackle England four days later and a final group game against Croatia on June 22.