Neil Lennon isn’t bothered by the daily headlines about Kieran Tierney’s apparent departure for Arsenal.
After an initial bid of £15m was rejected by Celtic there has been fervent speculation of a further offer followed by the inevitable departure.
Over the last few days the speculation has started to fizzle out with Arsenal linked with interest elsewhere and no indication that Tierney is angling for a ‘life changing’ move to London.
Lennon has lived through speculation linking his players with moves before, including Victor Wanyama and John McGinn, and isn’t losing any sleep over the latest bout of speculation.
Asked about Tierney following the 3-1 win in Sarajevo the Celtic boss told The Sun:
I have taken no notice of the headlines. I am well aware of where we are in terms of the situation.
I spoke to Kieran in Austria and to be honest I haven’t really seen much of him because he came back early for rehab, so he hasn’t been on the training ground as yet. It can be an unsettling period for any player and that is understandable but until a club comes up with any sort of realistic valuation of the player we don’t have to do anything and we won’t.
It’s as you were. Kieran is getting on with his rehabilitation and we are getting on with what we have to do here.
Tierney missed last night’s win in Sarajevo as he continued his rehab from an end of season double hernia operation.
Boli Bolingoli-Mbombo started off as a left-wing back against the Bosnian champions but after he was substituted due to an ankle injury Johnny Hayes played as a conventional right-back with Kris Ajer playing on the other side of defence.