I have an “inner circle.” I bet you do too.
We all have a group of people who we talk to about stuff that we don’t discuss with others. For some, that’s family. For others it’s a small group of friends as well as the family. If you talk to family at all. Some people don’t. They find their “inner circle” where they can.
But everyone has this tight-knit group which they trust.
Kieran Tierney has an “inner circle.”
That’s hardly news.
But according to the media today his “inner circle” cannot be trusted at all.
If you believe what you read, things he told to them in confidence are now splattered all over the blogs and the papers.
There is nothing lower in the world than the sort of people who do that.
If it’s true and Tierney has told his close friends that he’ll be gone by the end of the week then I would suggest that he needs to watch who he calls his mates.
Cause his “inner circle” is leaking like a sieve.
At least one person in it has betrayed his confidence, and Celtic fans are reading about his desire to leave the club.
But I suspect it’s not true at all.
I suspect that this is more clickbait nonsense from the kind of websites that give the blogosphere a bad name.
The media leaps all over this stuff, of course, not knowing and not caring if it’s true as long as they can slap an anti-Celtic headline on something.
For the record, I believe Kieran will go.
But I am not basing this on any first-hand knowledge; I’ve taken a cold-blooded view of it based on the money on offer, the chance to play in a better league and – and I think this is a major factor – the spectre of David Turnbull and the ever-present possibility of a career ending injury.
Every player struggles with that fear.
When you’ve spent time on the treatment table, doubtless it is on your mind a lot.
Not that long ago I said if Kieran went I’d be angry at him and I’d be angry at the board.
Because underneath it all I do want him to stay here and don’t believe his departure is necessary to give Lennon the funds he needs – everything he wants is a different story – or for Kieran to be “set up for life” and fulfil his career goals. Let me put it this way, I will be pretty chuffed if he’s here for ten in a row.
Yet I have, with reluctance, come to the conclusion that it might well be a good thing for all concerned if he makes the move now.
If it happens I will give it my support … on the condition that Lennon gets the funds.
Anything else will be a flat-out disgrace.
But even when I was opposed to the move, I was keen to make sure than in the event of his departure that nobody made the suggestion that he had been “pushed out” of the club; that will simply not happen. Kieran will leave Celtic only if he wants to leave.
Nobody is going to make him go to Arsenal, because no-one can.
It underestimates his own strength of character, and there are few stronger personalities.
I know too, though, that Kieran will not want to leave any bad blood behind him.
He and his people will present it as a tough decision and one that he made only reluctantly. If I were in his shoes and I wanted to portray my exit in a manner that reflected how much I cared about Celtic, I would be livid at the merest hint that someone in my “inner circle” had put that at risk.
I have to think Kieran is a better judge of character than that, and that he knows which of his friends he can trust.
I don’t believe a word of that story today, it reeks of the kind of “in the know” nonsense that proliferates online.
The media has seized it because it supports the narrative that the player is dying to get out of Celtic Park, which is manifestly untrue.
Kieran Tierney may fancy the move but he is not going to agitate for it.
He is not going to spit the dummy out of the pram if he has to stay at Celtic and it is shameful than some folk want to present that scenario. He is too much of a professional and he would act like one regardless of the club he was at and how he felt about it.
For sure, he will do nothing to harm Celtic itself.
The risk at the moment is harm to Kieran’s reputation with the Celtic support, and whether it’s a “friend” who can’t be trusted at all or website and news outlets who do not care about what damage they inflict on the young man at the centre of all this, one thing is clear.
There are a lot of people who claim to have his best interests at heart but don’t.
Their agenda is obvious, and they don’t care about him at all.