Shunsuke Nakamura has assured Celtic that he will be fit to help their quest for a fourth successive Clydesdale Bank Premier League title, despite leaving for Japan yesterday to embrace a hectic itinerary that will see him clock up over 12,500 miles, play two games and spend an entire day in the air.

The Japan midfield player is perhaps the most-travelled person from British football when it comes to international weeks. Nakamura is integral to his country’s bid to participate in the World Cup finals for the fourth time in a row.

His national team will face the United Arab Emirates in a friendly in Nigata on Saturday, before moving to Saitama, where Japan will host Uzbekistan tomorrow week in a crucial match in group one of the Asian qualifying round. The problem for Gordon Strachan, the Celtic manager, is that his team have a Saturday lunch-time kick-off against Inverness Caldeonian Thistle on Saturday, October 18 and Nakamura will have spent 15 hours coming back to Glasgow, via London, from Tokyo.

Nakamura covers the 6,300 miles between his native city and Glasgow so often that he is used to the gruelling 12-hour flight from Tokyo to London and he insisted yesterday that he plans to use the eight-hour time difference to catch up on sleep.

He hopes to be back in Glasgow on the Thursday night and will travel to Inverness the following day. “I will make it,” he said. “The time difference will hopefully work in my favour and I am aiming to be back for training the day before the game. I expect to be available for Inverness. There is no reason why I should miss it. There is no reason for anyone to be concerned that I won’t be back for it.

“It is an honour to play for your country and an honour to play with Celtic. There are always a lot of games in a season but I am used to it. I enjoy playing football.”

Nakamura will have no let-up in his punishing season because Japan’s group includes Australia, Bahrain, Qatar and Uzbekistan, which means away games on a scale that few European nations would countenance.

Nakamura’s colleague at Celtic, Scott McDonald, will also be putting in thousands of miles. The striker is included in Australia's squad for the qualifying game in Brisbane against Qatar tomorrow week, and although McDonald has just one game to play, he has a round-trip of over 21,000 miles.