There has been a decent amount of chatter over the last few weeks about the possibility of Celtic making the return of Kieran Tierney to Paradise a reality.
The current Arsenal defender has found it difficult to break into Mikel Arteta’s first team and whilst rumours have been rife that he could be about to leave the London club, I don’t believe his next destination should be Celtic.
Now, I’m not saying that having Tierney in the Celtic team wouldn’t improve it. Of course, it would. But it just wouldn’t be right for the club’s long-term plan.
Listen, just this morning I was advocating that Brendan Rodgers needs to look at offering Greg Taylor an improved contract. The 25-year-old defender has been outstanding for Celtic over the last two seasons.
As well as being deserving of a new deal, he is now at that precarious time in a professional footballer’s career of entering the last two years of a contract. This is the point that if Celtic wanted to cash in, they would do it now instead of letting his deal continue to run down.
Indeed, Celtic are of no mind to sell Taylor (as far as I know) but you get the point. Now the reason why bringing in Tierney would be a mistake is what kind of message would that send to Greg Taylor?
You would have to assume that if the Tierney move goes ahead, he’s coming in to play as a regular in the first team. Celtic will not pay a large portion of his reported £100k+ per week deal for him to sit on the bench.
And that would be a slap in the face for Taylor who has done nothing to warrant losing his place. Plus, this would be a break from our current transfer policy where we tend to loan players with a long-term view to purchasing them.
And with the greatest will in the world, Celtic are not going to buy back the former fans’ favourite. At least not whilst his value is still in the tens of millions.
However, Taylor’s position still does require strengthening. Not to replace him, but to give him competition. Alexandro Bernabei was brought in for that exact purpose but up until the end of last season, he failed to break into the first team.
I get that Bernabei had off-field issues and had just become a new father, but it was clear that in the two defeats against Rangers and Hibs, he was found wanting. And let’s be honest, it does seem as though Liam Scales has no immediate future at the club.
The Argentinian is a popular figure amongst the Celtic fans and at 22 years old, I guess he has time on his side to prove me wrong under a new manager in Brendan Rodgers. And I hope he does.
I hope I am sitting here at the end of next season writing a ‘How I got it wrong about Bernabei’ piece because if I am, that means that he is had a great season and Celtic have been successful again.
In other news, Report: Celtic are the main contenders to sign Brazilian winger Tete
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