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Our Teenage Sensation Has Given Us All A Tremendous Lift Before The Weekend

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What a great time to be a Celtic fan. Everything going well.

Kieran Tierney told the world the other day just how great it is to be a Celtic player too. This is the kind of news we wanted to hear, the kind of reaffirmation of loyalty and commitment that every one of us wants to hear from every player in the Hoops.

Kieran is one of our most valuable, most prized, assets. He looks genuinely superb, probably the best youth prospect to come out of our academy in years. His composure and class belies his age, and the experience he’s getting – including for the national team – means he will improve even further until we have a genuine top drawer footballer on our hands.

And he loves life at Celtic. He always has. He is one of us, one of the kids who grew up watching the team and dreaming of making the grade to play in the first team. It is an enormous credit to him that he has so quickly become indispensable to the side.

His injury was a huge blow, and there’s not a single supporter who isn’t praying he has a quick recovery.

His comments when asked this week about whether he is still happy at Celtic, when top clubs from other countries are circling, were fantastic.

“Growing up, Celtic had everything I wanted, and that’s not really changed now,” he told the BBC. “I always grew up dreaming of playing for Celtic, there wasn’t another team I dreamed of. I’m really happy where I am, and as soon as this injury happened, it made me appreciate Celtic as well, because everybody around was so supportive.”

Well he certainly earned that support. His performances have been stellar all season. He is one of our top players already, and a shoe-in for Young Player of the Year if he doesn’t take home the top prize, which one suspects he’ll be in competition with some of his fellow Hoops for. He could easily come out ahead, because he’s barely put a foot wrong.

He also has his head screwed on though.

We’ve all seen young players at this club who thought they were better than they were. Stories abound about the attitude issues of some of them, and guys like Mark Burchill thought they’d made it on the back of a handful of games. Some say the Barcelona goal ruined Tony Watt’s sense of perspective overnight. Then there’s Liam Miller, whose colossal career-wrecking decision to leave Celtic Park before he was ready is something people still marvel over.

Kieran Tierney will not make that mistake.

He has a mature outlook, and the love for our club that makes him want to succeed more than any of these guys did.

Only Aiden McGeady, in recent years, reached the point in his career where you could argue he stood a chance of fulfilling his goals away from Parkhead. Some say he made the wrong choice in going to Russia, but I always thought it was a courageous decision which said a lot about his character and determination to succeed.

Kieran wants to be here far into the future; that’s the message I get from his comments. This is home. This is a special place for him, and he knows that here he can become a wealthy young man and pursue the dreams at the same time. I

t’s not about money for everyone, and there are those who know you can only spend so much of it in a lifetime anyway.

For others it’s about the grander ambitions; winning things, being part of history, playing a role in something special, something that will last beyond your lifetime. Kieran can be that. It’s all on the table for him here, even the captaincy if he wants it.

It sounds to me like he wouldn’t be against the idea.

What a lovely lift for us going into the weekend.

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