Last night’s ‘Arsenal second offer’ for Kieran Tierney appears to have fallen well short of Celtic’s valuation, again.
‘Sky Sports understands’ was quickly followed up by the main news sources but it seems to be wishful thinking on the part of the London club or another example of someone mischief making.
BREAKING
Sky sources understand Arsenal have made a bid in the region of £25 million for Celtic left back Kieran Tierney. pic.twitter.com/zMHNxmQ7tu
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) July 13, 2019
New Kieran Tierney bid launched by Arsenal as Celtic receive £25million offerhttps://t.co/QyUbL17Jx0 pic.twitter.com/kNl3rMvPJX
— Daily Record Sport (@Record_Sport) July 13, 2019
Various In The Know sources suddenly spouted into life, giving their inside verdict on the deal covering all sorts of speculation regarding the player heading south, record deal for Celtic etc. etc.
Reality seems to suggest that little has changed. As the third best team in London it seems that Arsenal are trying to retain relevance with offers that they know won’t be acceptable- £15m for Tierney, £40m for Wilfried Zaha and a bizarre staged offer for William Saliba that appears to have opened the door for Tottenham to sign the St Etienne teenager.
Nothing appears to have came out of Celtic or Arsenal today.
David Ornstein seems to be the Arsenal expert at the BBC, he wasn’t getting overly excited although he did claim that Tierney is keen for the move to happen. That suggestion is more likely to come from London that Wishaw.
Arsenal’s latest bid was submitted to Celtic on Friday and Kieran Tierney is keen for the move to happen. It is complicated by the breakdown and nature of the instalments Arsenal are proposing – but there remains optimism that the transfer will be completed #AFC #CelticFC https://t.co/biLr8DOSdx
— David Ornstein (@bbcsport_david) July 14, 2019
Picking up on that lead the Evening Times were playing down expectations of a deal going through, hopefully their story hasn’t come from a misinformed freelance and a misunderstanding in production.
Exclusive: We understand there is still a long way to go until a deal can be madehttps://t.co/0PftYi4SHj
— The Evening Times (@TheEveningTimes) July 14, 2019
Whatever the motivations for last night’s breaking news it hasn’t done anyone any favours. If as seems likely Tierney remains a Celtic player this time next week the phrase ‘Sky sources understands’ will carry even less credibility than it did when they reported in Moussa Dembele’s transfer to Brighton on Christmas Day 2017.
While they play at games over Tierney the reality of life at Arsenal is that their club captain has refused to travel on their pre-season trip to the USA, hardly the sort of dressing room that you’d want to walk into and ask S’appenin Koscielny!