ARSENAL’S interest in Kieran Tierney rumbles on, the English transfer window closes in just over a week, so they really will have to make their move pretty soon if they are going to sign off the the top two left backs in British football for a tiny fraction of what the other one – Andy Robertson at Liverpool – would cost. That’s why Celtic should insist on a pretty substantial sell-on clause within any deal.
Yet up until now the North London club seem obsessed with penny pinching as Celtic have remained unimpressed by their proposals and bids throughout the summer. At the start of all of this the player’s agent would have told Arsenal what the situation was in Glasgow between the player and the club and how much they would need to bid in order to trigger any pre-agreement between Celtic and KT to advise the player of the bidding threshold having been met and to allow the player to decide if he wants to go.
The fact that this would be an offer acceptable to Celtic would tend to suggest to the player that it was time for a move, but despite being in possession of these facts from day one, Arsenal have tried to shave Celtic’s price while putting out misinformation about only having £40million to spend on transfers. Then they bid £72million for a Lille winger Nicolas Pepe – see the BBC yesterday reporting on this HERE.
The English transfer window for Premier League clubs closes at 5pm a week today, on 8 August. Other ‘reports’ yesterday claimed that Arsenal and Celtic were arguing over just £2million and this was being regarded as a petty sum of money. One site compared it to the cost of a semi-detached house in North London, near Arsenal’s ground.
They obviously weren’t following the news around Celtic this time last year when Celtic got into a stalemate with Hibs over an additional £200k for John McGinn and only budged after it became too late and the player opted for Aston Villa, who nipped in to conclude a great piece of business before the window closed.
Celtic are going to stand firm on the £25million asking price for Kieran Tierney and perhaps another big English club will see an opportunity in Arsenal’s reluctance to ‘do an Aston Villa’ and grab themselves a great Scottish bargain. Let’s hope not but Neil Lennon is realistic enough to know that money talks in football and a deal might happen within the next week – and he has been considering his options if it does.
Lenny was asked of Bolingoli could file the void if KT leaves. The Celtic manager has already spent £3million on Bolingoli this summer but with Emillio Izaguirre gone and perhaps KT following, he knows that he will be short in that position
“Yes, but we would look to bring another one in as well if KT goes. I don’t think there’s any question that we would have to do that anyway,” Lenny said when asked by the media, as reported by Evening Times.
“I thought (Bolingoli) was good in Tallinn. I thought he was a lot stronger. He looked really off it last week and I don’t know whether that was down to the virus or not. He was more like himself offensively and defensively.
“His fitness levels were good so, yeah, a much more rounded performance from him. We’re only talking a couple of weeks in a new country and people are expecting (the new signings) to hit the ground running.
“The problem is that they have to, but the more games he gets under his belt the more au fait he gets with life and the training and the players and the better he will get.
“We had a chat with him on Saturday morning and he had a good run out in a bounce game against Man City for 45 minutes. He has then played the 90 in Tallinn and that looked more like him.”
Also on The Celtic Star…
Focused Ntcham wasn’t Pusillanimous in Tallinn, ‘and it was pleasing’ says Lenny…see HERE.
‘I just want to play as many games as I can,’ Gordon’s Glad to be Back…see HERE.
Matt Corr’s latest…July 1988 – Dennis Bergkamp and Charlie Christie cross paths as Ian Andrews fumbled a last-minute free-kick …see HERE.
