Kieran Tierney was thwarted in his desire to move to Celtic in January.
The defender penned a pre-contract agreement with his beloved club after being forced to sit on the sidelines at Arsenal.
His move allegedly hinged on an Oleksandr Zinchenko £30million sale but when that did not happen, fans may have got excited about the prospect of landing Tierney early.
As it happened, Gunners boss Mikel Arteta refused to sanction the early exit and opted to keep hold of the player so Jeffrey Schlupp arrived in Glasgow instead.
Brendan Rodgers addressed that Arsenal decision as he explained how the failure to land KT before the window shut was “not a Celtic issue”.
What Arteta has said about Celtic-bound Tierney
Tierney has been left on the bench for the club more often than not with the emergence of youngster Myles Lewis-Skelly in the first-team battling it out with first choice left-back Riccardo Calafiori.
And gambles have been taken on the 27-year-old unnecessarily which gave away Arsenal‘s early thought process on the Scotland cap.
Now manager Arteta has been asked specifically about Tierney as well as Zinchenko’s futures with neither leaving North London on Monday night.
Asked if they perhaps would have been allowed had their club got more transfer business done themselves, Arteta was evasive.
He said: “Now I focus on the number that I have, how to maximise them, how to make the best out of them.
“With all the problems we have already had, we are in February, and I think it’s remarkable what the team has done, so I have full faith in them.”
Myles Lewis-Skelly is ahead of Tierney in the Arsenal ranks
Lewis-Skelly has burst onto the scene at the Emirates recently and scored in their romp over Manchester City.
And Arteta – ahead of their defeat to Newcastle in the Carabao Cup semi-final – hyped up Lewis-Skelly for showing a readiness at the big club.
“The players will be best [placed] to express how they feel about Myles in this particular game, because they are sitting next to each other, they share the pitch which is the most important thing.
“What I’ve always said is how they feel about these young players when they come in – do they trust them, do they feel like they’re stronger with them and that’s the feeling that I get when we give them that opportunity.
“For me, they are ready in our eyes, but in the team’s feeling as well, they feel that they can be better with them.”
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