Mikel Arteta has played down fears of an injury to Kieran Tierney, insisting the early substitution was all part of their plan.

Kieran Tierney only recently returned from a few months out with injury, and he played his first minutes in pre-season on Friday, starting against FC Nurnberg.

After just half an hour, Tierney came off for Cedric Soares, sparking fears of a setback. But Mikel Arteta explained they were always planning to bring him off that early.

“He’s really good,” Arteta said of Tierney’s condition. “He’s been training really good.

“Obviously, he’s been out for over three months now so we wanted to give him a proper warm-up, play the first half an hour, and then get him out.

“So he was in good condition and there’s no issues there.”

Tierney picked up a knee injury at the start of April, undergoing surgery that ruled him out of the remainder of the 2021/22 campaign.

Unfortunately, that meant missing the key part of Arsenal’s top-four run-in and Scotland’s subsequent World Cup qualifiers. The Gunners missed out on the Champions League and Scotland failed to make this year’s tournament in Qatar.

Though Tierney won’t see it this way, the upside from an Arsenal point of view is that the 25-year-old will get a mid-season break from competitive football.

Arsenal’s treatment of Tierney during this first friendly makes sense.

It allowed the left-back to get back into a rhythm with the pre-match warm-up, leading into the game, but there was no need to risk him for longer than 30 minutes so soon after his return.

By next Sunday, he’ll hopefully be ready for a full half of football, steadily building towards more as pre-season progresses.