Chris Sutton believes that the ‘Fair Trade’ price for Kieran Tierney is £35m taking into account the contempt that English clubs have for players in Scotland.
Over the last week a fierce debate has developed after an initial £15m bid from Arsenal was rejected with the message going out that it will take £25m to get Celtic to negotiate a deal.
Yesterday the suggestion was that the offer had been edged up to £17.5m with a further £7.5m due if the player met certain criteria and Arsenal qualified for the Champions League. Arsenal are sixth favourites to lift the title and odds against to finish in the top four.
In 2015 Sutton pointed out how Virgil van Dijk was underpriced at £13m compared to the £50m that Manchester City paid out for John Stones. Anyone going into the current market for a central defender during this window would have to shell out five times as much for the Dutchman as the City defender.
On twitter Scott McDonald claimed that Sutton was a cheerleader for Celtic, in the Australian’s favourite newspaper Sutton laid out the grounds for a Tierney deal.
In the Daily Record he explained:
There is a halfway house here. Arsenal think they can get Tierney for around £20m. Wan Bissaka has gone for £50m. That means the meet in the middle figure should be at the £35m mark.
And, if Celtic accept anything significantly less than that for Tierney during this transfer window, then they have been insulted again just as they were over the sale of van Dijk.
Tierney hasn’t given any indication of wanting to leave Celtic or join a club committed to paying Mesut Ozil £300,000 per week for the next two years which comes in at just north of £31m.
