“Vibrant” Freya Gregory will “fit in really well” when she joins the Scotland squad for the first time next week, believes captain and former team-mate, Rachel Corsie.

Former England youth international Gregory received her first call-up last week when interim head coach Michael McArdle named her in his first squad for the Nations League openers against Austria and the Netherlands later this month.

The 22-year-old joined Newcastle United last month having spent the previous five years at Aston Villa, where she was a team-mate of Corsie’s.

“I’m actually really excited for Freya,” Corsie said of Gregory – who spent the last six months on loan at Southampton – on the BBC’s Behind the Goals podcast.

“About nine months ago we had a conversation – she’s spent a bit of time in Scotland in the last couple of years and she’ll always send me a message whenever she’s in Edinburgh exploring.

“I’m excited for her. She’s a promising young player, she’s got an excellent left foot, she’s 100mph and she’s very competitive – that’s the football side of her.

“I’d describe her as a vibrant character with a lot of personality, I think she’ll fit in really well. I know the girls will look after her and I hope she has a really good week and she trains really well because I know that she’ll be very nervous.”

Gregory will have a familiar face in Kirsty Hanson, who she also shared a dressing room with at Villa, but, she won’t have Corsie herself who suffered another set-back on her return to fitness.

“I was a bit down last week and I wasn’t mentally in a position to talk about it, it was very raw,” the 35-year-old, who hasn’t played for Scotland since July, said.

“I was meant to be back with the team this week and I got a little scare, I thought I’d irritated something worse than I had.

“It’s not as worrying as I thought it might have been – I’m still probably a couple of weeks away from being back in with the team – at one point it was looking like a few more weeks than it actually is going to be.

“When you’ve been injured you feel everything a bit more and that just brings a bit of anxiety with it and I panicked.

“I’m feeling a bit better this week and just trying to get over this hurdle.”

Listen and subscribe to the BBC’s Behind the Goals podcast here