A matter of sadness, tragic- Daily Mail reporter reacts to Tierney’s expected Celtic return

Gary Keown has described Kieran Tierney’s potential return to Celtic as a matter of sadness, adding that it feels nothing short of tragic!

As a columnist he is paid to express his views but it is a strange conclusion to make about the return to Scottish football of a 27-year-old current internationalist.

Injuries are the biggest issue in the Tierney story, that is the reason that Arsenal aren’t taking up an option to add 12 months to his contract which expires in June.

Not since the 2017/18 season has the defender enjoyed an injury free run of first team football but his talent and ability can’t be questioned.

If Celtic are preparing a move his fitness issues will have been assessed, they’ll know that he might require a different fitness regime, that four games in 10 days in the dark of winter would be asking too much.

For the deal to go through there needs to be agreement between player and club. Brendan Rodgers has spoke warmly about Tierney at every opportunity, it now just remains for the final pieces of the jig-saw to be put together.

Keown seems less than enthusiastic about watching Tierney on a regular basis, writing in the Daily Mail he doesn’t hold back with his feelings:

It’s a big story, all right. An exciting one. Yet, the prospect of a generational talent such as Tierney going back to Celtic at the age of 27 is a matter of sadness rather than celebration.

Indeed, the idea of him going back to effectively end his career at Celtic Park alongside fellow academy graduate Callum McGregor feels nothing short of tragic.

Both men are hugely talented players. Both, particularly if Tierney re-signs, will go down as figures of real importance in the team’s recent history. But looking beyond the partisan and parochial nature of the Scottish game, the feeling remains that both should be doing more with their careers than living as big fish in the stagnant, whiffy pond of the SPFL.

After sharing his regrets over what McGregor missed out on by not going to Leicester City in the summer of 2019 Keown shares his hopes that an alternative January offer could keep Tierney away from returning to Celtic.

It is easy to see why Tierney would be open to returning to Parkhead. He has stated in the past that leaving the club he supports to go to Arsenal was a decision that kept him awake at night.

He’s on record as stating that playing for Celtic is ‘the ultimate’. He misses the place. Loves it. He has challenged himself at a high level, satisfied that urge, and may just feel the time is right – paycut or no paycut – to come back to the place he feels and calls home.

It is just that he is still only 27, for crying out loud. There will surely be interest from other clubs when he is free to agree a pre-contract in January.

If he can get himself into good physical shape and find a way to put the injury issues that have dogged him to bed, there could well be other special adventures out there for him. Celtic will always be there. Perhaps a stop-off point after one more investigation of what might exist in other worlds. One more shot at seeing where his talent might yet take him.

Going back to Glasgow would just feel like some kind of admission of defeat, an acceptance that he tried his luck at the top level and it didn’t quite deliver, that his body maybe wasn’t up to it and needs a less exacting environment in which to operate.

Who knows what else might be offered to him, though? Maybe nothing will excite him the way Celtic would, but shouldn’t he wait and see?

He concludes with:

Yet, for those who understand just what potential these two guys possessed, and can look at the world without the green-and-white tinted spectacles, it will be a spectacle coloured indelibly by regrets and questions over what truly could have been.

For all the cheers and the shouts and the lording it over inferior opposition, a tragedy of sorts, indeed.

Tierney is a Celtic fan, spent more than a decade at the club and probably misses the place, the offer to return carries a lot of appeal.

After five years in London and Spain returning to his family home probably means something to him.

Realistically the new look Champions League could offer 10 high quality matches over a 10 month season, almost certainly Tierney watched Celtic winning the League Cup last Sunday and experienced the same emotions as every fan.

Being part of that again might just appeal to him, seeing Daizen Maeda pop home the winning penalty, mobbing Kasper Schmeichel then celebrating in front of supporters that includes many family and friends.

Keown might not see it but if he does move to Celtic in January Tierney will demonstrate that his world doesn’t revolve around finishing third or fourth in one of the richer leagues and treating it as some sort of achievement.