CQN’s Tierney Analysis Is Spot On Even If Some Celtic Fans Don’t Want To Hear It.

This morning, Paul Brennan at CQN has published a brutal analysis of the Kieran Tierney situation, and made it clear that he believes the player’s latest injury is the reason talk of a return to Celtic is so far from reality.

This blog has said much the same, several times.

Paul’s article is being criticised in some quarters from “kicking a man when he’s down.”

It does no such thing.

It is a cold-blooded analysis of what the signing of Kieran Tierney would mean for Celtic, and is precisely the kind of article that a responsible blogger who is keen-eyed and wants the best for our club should be willing to produce, one that will upset people but which also sets out a clear argument based on the facts. I commend it.

It’s not Paul’s fault that this issue keeps raising its head, and he is probably just as baffled as me at the number of times this subject is put in the public domain and discussed as if it were something we ought to pursue. There are numerous reasons why it would not work, and one of them isn’t even in Paul’s piece; Kieran Tierney thinks he has a couple more years at the highest level and he is not interested in taking what he regards as a step backwards.

Yes, Kieran Tierney regards returning to Celtic as a step back. He has made this clear, even if people don’t want to hear it. He has laid it out, more than once, and he wants to try his hand again in Spain, or in Italy, or in England once more … a top five league. He thinks he belongs there and the reason so many of these “come home” stories proliferate is that we know a fully fit Kieran Tierney does belong in one of those leagues and would be a standout.

And yet this is the paradox. Because it’s only because people sense that Tierney won’t get the kind of club he wants in the kind of league he covets that the talk of a return to Celtic is so widespread. It’s just that those who think there’s a realistic chance of us getting him never quite follow that thought all the way to its conclusion; why is he suddenly available? Why is he available within a price bracket we could afford? Why do people think he won’t end up at another Arsenal?

We saw the reason last night. As a club we could not possibly countenance a £10 million bid for a player with his injury record.

It’s heartbreaking for Kieran, heartbreaking for Scotland it will be a blow to those who wish to see him back in our colours, and I myself regard him as one of the exceptional players I’ve watched at the club in my lifetime … but it’s the club itself which I always put foremost in my thinking and there’s nothing to credit this idea at all.

Paul Brennan’s piece put it thus;

“Even if Kieran took a pay cut, down to the level of the other senior players, and Arsenal were happy to move him on for a token, would you want a big wage, a place in the squad and our hopes for the left back position hanging on a player who will inevitably miss significant amounts of football?”

And the answer to that is obvious, even those who might be resistant to those who might not enjoy admitting it. We’re past this. We were past it the day Kieran Tierney left; the size of the fee, the club he ended up it, the wages he had to be on … all of it precluded his return as anything like the player who left us with such fond memories.

Even Tierney himself speaks of it as a distant prospect, to be arrived at in his thirties … he has to know that wouldn’t be satisfying for either party. His own previous comments on this make it very clear that he understands the unlikelihood of it.

“I left that to go and challenge myself in the Premier League and come up against the best to see how I’d cope. If I go back, I want to be feeling how I did there before,” he told the Athletic not that long ago. “I’ll be a different player to what I was, as I’ve been away for years, but I wouldn’t want to go back if I wasn’t feeling 100 per cent in my body. I know the intensity and the demand to win so, if I go back, it will be when I’m still feeling good.”

In short, he knows it won’t ever happen. He’s never going to be 100%, and he knows that and Kieran loves Celtic enough never to want to do us down, or sell us short, or come here just to take a wage. If he can’t make a full and obvious contribution to the cause he’d only be a drag on the wage-bill and he has too much integrity not to acknowledge it.

Kieran will forever be one of my favourite Celtic players. He will have a place in my heart as long as I am following this club. It would be horrendous to have those memories sullied by an unproductive spell at the tail end of his career when he’s nowhere near the footballer he was … and he would never give us less than that.

Kieran has the best wishes of every Celtic fan as he aims to recover from his latest blow.

Scotland will miss him for the remainder of this competition.