CELTIC’s exciting young full back Jeremie Frimpong spoke to the media yesterday after his outstanding performance at the weekend against Ross County. He lit up that match and opens the door for the exciting group of youngsters in the Celtic development side who will know that in Neil Lennon they have a manager who is prepared to give youth a chance.
Back in August Celtic sold a home-grown full back, Kieran Tierney to Arsenal for £25million. Despite moving to the Premier League side while carrying an injury, Tierney has excited the Arsenal support in the couple of outings that he’s managed after getting himself fit enough to play. He’s not played much football at all in 2019 and will be desperate to get a run in the Arsenal team.
SamTeàrlachH, a well-known member on Celtic Noise, has been thinking about the decision Tierney made in choosing to leave Celtic for Arsenal. Jeremie Frimpong opted to leave Manchester City to sign for Celtic for footballing reasons and that seems to have been a very shrewd decision indeed for the young right-back who also doubles up as a right winger of some note!
Sam isn’t so sure that Tierney, who was left on the bench earlier this week while Arsenal were losing to Sheffield United, has been as shrewd as Frimpong in his choosing a new club to play for. Here’s what he’s had to say…
I’m actually not one for obsessively following the careers of our former players, but, like most Celtic fans, I can’t deny the affection I have for Kieran Tierney. I was critical of his move – one aspect of that criticism was the team he was leaving us for. Sure, Arsenal adorn him with riches far beyond the riches we were giving him, but I don’t believe Arsenal are a football club in the ascendancy. They’re pretty much the same kind of side that they were in the bad old days of Arsene Wenger – weak and tactically flaky.
But another problem I had was Unai Emery. He’s an erratic and hardcore stubborn manager who has been known to bench players based on misplaced loyalty to ‘established’ names and he often makes a point of ignoring fan opinion – this was a major part of the criticism of him at PSG.
His unwillingness to play Tierney in the EPL is evident of this, what with Emery coming out and saying that Tierney’s main rival for the LB, namely Sead Kolasinac, who is average at best, has done nothing to be dropped. Arsenal have just been done 1-0 by Sheffield United, in a game in which the pretty woeful John Fleck was given ‘Man of the Match’.
They are a team with a weak and at times comically bad defence. What keeps them afloat is the attacking proficiency of Aubameyang. The fact Emery refuses to even use KT as a sub doesn’t bode well for him. It wouldn’t surprise me if Emery doesn’t fancy him due to fear of dropping the more established, but in my opinion inferior, Kolasinac, and thus he’ll severely limit his involvement to domestic cup competitions and the Europa League group stages.
Again, it’s not any kind of concern for Celtic fans. But it would be sad for one the best prospects our club has produced, and one of the best Scottish players, to be lost among the heaps of dung that Arsenal finds itself mired in.
That’s Sam’s view. When top players leave Celtic it’s remarkable how quickly they are usually replaced by new heroes. Perhaps Kenny Dalglish in 1977 is the main exception to this because that devastated Celtic for a season. But Kieran left and it may end up that he’ll miss Celtic more than we’ll miss him.
All the best to the Bhoy though.
