So today the story of the day is Kieran Tierney.
Or that’s what the press would like the story of the day to be about.
And it’s disgraceful the way they constantly try to unsettle this kid and to make something out of nothing.
The latest tales link him with Everton; as I wrote yesterday, when this broke but before it snowballed, he can do better.
I get sick of this stuff. I get sick writing counters to it. Kieran has said he wouldn’t leave for Manchester United or Arsenal, so he’s not leaving for Everton no matter how much money they dangle before him. He says he’s “living the dream” right now, and maybe eventually that dream will take him from Celtic Park but it’s far in the future.
This kid is not interested in just money. He knows his time at our club will make him a multi-millionaire. He knows he’s going to captain us if he stays and if he leads this club forward in the manner he plays then it’s all there for the taking.
He can be a coach here. He can one day be a manager here, once he has the experience.
He can have a whole life and a career based around Celtic Park. He can literally write his own ticket, in the way Danny McGrain has. That’s a man who gave us everything and is still giving us everything to this day. Kieran can be of that mould.
So these stories insult him.
They insult him by questioning his loyalty and putting a price tag on it. They question his word and his vow to Celtic and its supporters that this is where he sees his immediate future. He has given no hint that he believes otherwise.
It insults our manager, who has said exactly nothing this week that he hasn’t said a million times before about Moussa and other players, and yes about Kieran too; he does not want the player to go, but he would never stand in the way of someone who wanted to go and make more money and grow his experience elsewhere. For numerous papers and sites to be running those comments as if they are new, as if there’s new information here, is to pretend our manager is just like all the others, that he will hold players against their will.
Celtic’s policy on this is clear, and Dermot Desmond expressed it when Arsenal were allegedly interested in Brendan. That policy will hurt us from time to time, but I cannot argue with the decency at the heart of it, the genuine concern that we never get a reputation as a club that will make these issues adversarial.
And that benefits us more than any pain it causes.
This whole thing is an insult to Celtic too.
We are a club that does its business in a professional manner, quietly, behind the scenes. We don’t leak stories to newspapers. We don’t try to unsettle footballers playing elsewhere with endless speculation. We do not encourage tapping in any form. And that’s what these stories amount to.
Celtic has made the position clear time and time again; clubs which want to talk business should talk business in the appropriate manner and through the proper channels. If someone’s interested in Kieran Tierney or Moussa Dembele or anyone else they should express that interest by picking up the phone and calling Celtic Park, not through the media.
All this pish about Everton amounts to nothing more than that they are looking for a left back, have EPL money to spend and that Kieran is one of the best in the country. If they want to make an offer for him they know how to do it.
Until then it’s a non-story. Until then it’s handy speculation for a media with nothing better to do when they get finished licking Steven Gerrard’s backside.
Note that none of these articles say Everton has made a bid.
All this speculation that they are “on the verge” of making an offer means nothing at all, and it’s akin to me saying I am “on the verge” of winning the Booker Prize. All I have to do is finish my novel, find an agent, find a publisher, smash the bestsellers list, get the attention of the committee and then close the deal. Nothing but ABC, right?
Yeah ABC.
Absolutely Bloody Cobblers.