Former Celtic defender Kieran Tierney looks set to depart Arsenal. Reports have stated that the left-back is on a list of players to be sold in the summer as Arteta continues to build the club in his image.
Arsenal insider Charles Watts has stated on YouTube that Kieran Tierney’s time at the club is coming to an end. The Scotland Internationalist joined the Premier League club in the summer of 2019 under Unai Emery; however, he has fallen out of the picture under Arteta.
“I think Tierney’s time at Arsenal is coming to an end. I don’t know where he’s going to go in the summer, Arsenal are open to selling him permanently. Last summer they couldn’t do that, no real bids came in for him, so they sent him off to Sociedad.
“Whether Sociedad will turn out permanently in the summer, we’ll have to wait and see. He’s made a good impact there, but he has had injuries again which have disrupted his season…I don’t see a way back for him at Arsenal.”
Tierney was an unused sub as Real Sociedad exited the UEFA Champions League to PSG with Javi Galán having started at left-back. Since joining the Basque club on a season-long loan deal, KT has made 18 appearances making just 1 assist. Galan meanwhile has made 10 appearances since arriving from Atletico Madrid in the January window.
In his time at Arsenal, Tierney has made 124 appearances, scoring on 5 occasions and assisting 14 times.
In truth, the player played his best and most consistent football at Celtic, where he made 170 appearances, scored 8 goals and assisted 37 times. It always felt that the player might come back to the club, such was his connection with Celtic. However, given the injuries that have plighted his ascendency to the very top of the game, he may fancy returning to Scotland and reuniting with Brendan Rodgers.
A TeamTalk article suggested that Arsenal would want £30m for the player but that is fanciful, they would struggle to get a fee like this for a peripheral first team player. Rodgers and KT are close, with the Irishman commenting on his quality last year. The move would address the depth issue at left-back, while also allowing for Tierney’s games to be managed as not to aggravate any more injuries.
A loan with an obligation to buy at the end of the season (where Tierney has one year left) would be a prudent move by the club and should not be overlooked. Arsenal want rid and the player’s own connection with Celtic should be played upon to bring him back and help the club push on to achieve the ambitions of the manager and the support.
He is far too injury prone and will be lucky to be performing at any level by the time he is 30. No club will pay big money for him due to his injury record, if Arsenal were offered even anything close to 10 million they would bite your hand off for that. A club in the EPL might take him with clauses in the contract, any club willing to give him a 4 or 5 year deal on his present wages would be madness, he has the ability but is always injured. My fear is we lose the league and to appease the fans we try and sign him in the summer and end up wasting millions on a guy who will be injured for half a season at least. Remember a Arsenal fan saying he doubted if Tierney would play for the club again as he was rumoured to have had a serious fall out with the manager over his lack of game time. Arsenal would probably let him leave on a free transfer if he is still there next August just to get him off the wage bill. A loan deal should be the only deal Celtic should look at, even that would cost north of 5 million for a season.
I’m not sure we’ve a good record of managing Tierney’s fitness. We flogged him when he reached the first team which may have contributed to his susceptibility to injury during his career.
I wish him well but not sure if coming back to Celtic is a good idea for him, or our squad.
I loved Tierney early in his day’s at celtic, the problem with signing him is the injury liability he has become.
Play two miss fifteen is not good business.
Getting him on a free with pay as you play is the only viable option.
We would still need another left back as Taylor has nil defensive qualities.