Yesterday evening, several sources reported that Arsenal had given up trying to sign Kieran Tierney from Celtic.
The Gunners had two bids rejected – a first in the region of £15 million and a second totalling £25 million including add-ons – neither of which impressed the Scottish champions.
Having scoffed at our opening gambit, Neil Lennon has now said he doesn’t think Arsenal’s offers were disrespectful, it’s just Celtic hold all the cards with Tierney, a lifelong supporter of the club, who is under contract until 2023.
Speaking this afternoon, he told Sky Sports: “It’s as you were really. I’ve had no information other than there was two bids that came in from Arsenal that were rejected.
“There has been no further inroads into that really. Our valuation of Kieran wasn’t met and it’s as simple as that.
“You will see other transfers not going through because valuations haven’t been met. It’s not a case of Arsenal being disrespectful.
“They put a bid in that they valued the player at. They came back again and obviously see Kieran as a very good player, as we do. But on a long-term contract we’re in a very strong position when it comes to Kieran.”
Will we try again later in the transfer window? It feels like we’re not willing to go any higher for Tierney than we’ve offered and the temptation must now be to stick with Sead Kolasinac and Nacho Monreal and to use the funds elsewhere.
@Gunnerblog – you play left back, don’t you?
I’d definitely prefer Andrew at left back to Kolasinac
Ok, seems we’ve learned that the readers are much, much more supportive of James playing LB than Andrew. How does that make you feel Blogs?
Lol! Despite thinking Tierney would be an excellent signing, im ok not get a LB this season, granted we sign a top quality CB.
If given the choice, I would RATHER have a CB over a LB. But we need both to be honest.
An experienced CB actually makes sense this year. Saliba will come next year and Sokratis will be a year older. Then next year we will have Holding, Saliba, new CB and an aging Sokratis. That would shore up the center rof defense.
We also have no fully fit RB. AMN is not a RB, nor should he be HB’s back-up
Sounds good to me….. He’s injured until the middle of August, we’re unlikely to see him until mid September at the earliest, due to him missing pre-season, and he’s missed 300+ days in 3 years at the age of 22, due to a wide-range of injuries.
Looks like we’re dodging a bullet.
So he’d fit right in
It’s funny, I don’t recall a lot of cries for us not to sign him, but now it looks like we may not sign him, we’ve all of a sudden dodged a bullet?
Kepp him and basta! We don’t need a guy who currently can’t run and has recently had two big injuries including an operation.
I don’t get why you’re so short sighted. Drogba scored 29 goals with a hernia issue in 2010. It’s far from career-threatening, and it’s not as if we don’t have LB cover until he’s fully fit anyway.
This is about the future of the club. Getting a comparable player to Bellerin on the left. If we don’t wake up I can almost guarantee Tierney will go to some tw@ts like Chelsea for £50m in a couple of years.
And the same guys happy we’ve dodged a bullet will be lamenting as to why we didn’t sign him earlier.
Emery is certainly doing as little as possible to ensure he remains at Arsenal.
This has been the worse summer transfer window I can remember – with so many areas that need strengthening to do nothing is just beyond incompetence.
Arsenal do not have the time to bed youngsters in and more importantly EMERY does not have the time.
Emery was no one’s choice to manage Arsenal – even the cheapskate owners only chose him because he was cheap and available.
We should never have let Wenger go…
Emery doesn’t actually control transfers as Wenger did – that was kind of the whole point of the new structure. I would love to see Teirney as an Arsenal player but also kind of found Lennon’s comments about how much he is worth when Man U payed 50m for a player who really had played fullback for one year enlightening. Foreign leagues view selling players to the PL as winning the lottery – we’re not in a position where we can operate like that.
That’s true – Wenger had absolute control over transfers, a point that his supporters choose to forget when we’re talking about the “stinkers” he signed (Mr Mustafi being a good, current, example). That said, Emery certainly does indicate the players he wants. Unfortunately, we just don’t have the dosh to carry out “straightforward” transfer negotiations. It’s the bits and bobs we’re trying to include in order to reduce the initial up front cost is what’s causing the problems. No way around that, I fear.
Trying to gauge players value off of what Utd pays doesn’t really work.
Trippier went to Athletics for what? £20-25M?
Sessegnon might go to Tottenham for about the same amount.
£50M fullback valuations only work if you’re the selling club.
I can understand the frustation but Wenger was never the answer. His old method, tactics didn’t work anymore. 8-2, 6-0, 5-1, 10-2, etc. All the humiliations showed his time had been over. His recruitment decision in late years sucked. Mustafi, Xhaka, Paulista, etc all wasted. He hadn’t signed any winger since Samir Nasri (he was not a natural one though). At least Emery is straight to the truth. Ok, so i admit our squad is sh*t. We need to spend huge on several positions in order to become ‘competitive’ again. It is different from ‘ We are strong enough to… Read more »
So Alexis Sanchez wasn’t a winger? Righto.
Alexis was a midfielder at Udinese and didn’t really play as a forward or a wide forward until Barcelona/Arsenal. So no, he was not a winger.
The last 3 clubs he was at (including Utd) he played on the wing. If that doesn’t constitute as a winger then I don’t know what does.
Eh? When he played for us Alexis scored against every team in the Premier League (something almost no striker has done). He didn’t do that playing on the wing.
He’s a versatile forward. Robben and Ribery are wingers. You ever see them playing like centrally like Alexis did?
Well, guess these votes prove the original point about Wenger not signing many wingers.
Because we haven’t seen a natural winger in Arsenal colours for a while, we think anyone who sometimes plays in a wide role is automatically a winger.
Please explain? Not being funny but the majority of votes went against you as of this moment. He didn’t sign many sure, but Mhiki, Joel and Alexis pop in to my head and they’re all wingers to varying degrees of talent. Robben and Ribery played on the opposite wing to cut in on their stronger foot which is extremely common these days. Alexis did the same on the left. Just because the don’t play wide on a flat 4 4 2 doesn’t mean they aren’t wingers.
I’d class Joel and maybe Gervinho as natural wingers. So are Robben and Ribery. But guys like Mkhitaryan and Alexis are different. Just because they sometimes take up wide roles, it doesn’t make them wingers either.
I think what he means, is to think of them as coaches do; players define different by their numbers.
Sanchez was a 10, but could play anywhere in the forward position.
It was well known that Wenger had a penchant for buying 10s and playing them anywhere.
At one point I recall we had a team from midfield onward where everyone was a no.10 predominantly at some point in the past before coming to us.
Do you know what is the meaning of a NATURAL winger?
Stanley Mathews.
Agree 100%. The decisions taken during Wenger’s latter years are mainly responsible for us being where we are now – a squad that just doesn’t have quality in depth, but does has several over-paid players that, thanks to the contracts signed when he was manager, we can’t sell! Emery is doing his best in very difficult circumstances but, unlike Wenger, he hasn’t got £millions to squander on some pretty average players.
Gillion?
Somewhere hot will freeze over before Emery’s career becomes “more important” than the well being of our club.
Starting to wonder who the alternatives are for him ?
So far, this window has addressed none of our needs. Incoming or outgoing.
Ospina’s out, and if Ceballos is in that plugs the Ramsey hole somewhat.
I’m grasping at straws here..
Oh yeah, and Martinelli.
Wait, we needed a striker, right?
No?
Looks like Ceballos is just a bandaid that will get ripped off in about 12 months time.
Surely the fact that Tierney isn’t likely to join does not address the issue that the management team prioritised a need to strengthen at left back? I know Kos is likely to leave so maybe that’s changed the priorities
You can shoot your mouth off till the cows come home for all we care, Lennon. The deal is off so poke your overpriced and injury prone little player. We’re done here.
The most irritating thing for me about our attempts to sign Tierney is the constant running commentary on it by Lennon, and various Celtic “insiders”.
As far as I’m concerned, silence is golden when it comes to conducting a transfer.
That’s Lennon thru and thru…always running his mouth off…can’t believe Celtic made him their permanent manager again…shite club shite manager and if Tierney wants to stay there then he’s a f$&@ idiot.
Basically we can’t afford him this year. Shame, I like his attitude and think he’d have been just what we need in order to play a midfield three.
Really hope we have a Plan B.
As far as I’m concerned we need a top CB, a LB and a winger. Doubt we’ll get all three, maybe one of them?
Nothing against the lad himself but after Lennon running his gob like he has I don’t think we should bother again. Find another player from a club with serious people in charge, not gobshites like Lennon.
Let’s face the facts. We will finish 6-8th. Emery will be sacked, new manager comes in on less money, no new major transfers next summer so we finish 6-8th. Repeat.
We lived a great period between 97-2006 but it’s over now. We are big but not massive and that’s it.
It must have been love…
Yes, there’s an obvious element of truth in that statement despite the number of negative votes it’s got. If we’re honest, we currently don’t have much of a chance of a top four finish next season, particularly given the transfer activity to date. If this goes on too long, we’ll find it difficult to keep our remaining quality players and attract quality replacements. There’s an old adage: You can’t win trophies without your best players, but you can’t keep your best players if you don’t win trophies. Simples!
He may turn out to be an awesome LB but it’s impossible to know until he gets out of the SPL and into a top league. So I fully understand that AFC don’t want to gamble with the kind of money Celtic want for him.
Lets move on.
That Lennon fella sure talks a lot.
Eats a lot, too, by the look of him.
At least our offer wasn’t ham-fisted. He would have bitten our hands off!
Makes me want us to sign Tierney just to shut him up.
Lennon is kind of a moron.
I thought it was a type of citrus fruit.
Former Soviet leader?
Summer cloth but not cotton?
He’s an absolute twat. Shows the ambition Celtic have making him permanent manager again.
Lennon is a wonderful charming intelligent man and will drive Celtic forward this season. The people writing adverse comments are Bluenoses. They have no reason to say anything nice about Mr. Lennon who has had a wonderful career as a competitive footballer and now as a manager.
It’s been said before but we are fuckin pathetic in the transfer market
Why precisely? I mean I agree with you in general, but this Tierney case seems fair enough. We had a valuation that we bid up to, didn’t meet what theirs was, so no deal. Seems pretty standard and glad we aren’t being fleeced (like united and their £50mil full back). Celtic don’t even seem annoyed by the whole thing, we tried but no dice.
Out of the many, many transfer failings we have had recently, this really isn’t one of them.
Because we’re haggling over a few million yet again, the boy is more than good enough to lock down the LB position for the next 7-8 years. Just pay the 25 in cash if that’s what gets the deal done
Who is downvoting this?
The losers in this saga will be Celtic and the player. They need to learn from Lyon who saw Nabil Fekir’s value drop from £53 million to £17.7 million in 12 months. In a couple of years Burnley will be signing Tierney for £10 million.
Of course Lyon would have got that £53m if Fekir didn’t fail that medical! If Burnley sign him and he does well in the prem, he’ll probably go to a top 6 side for £50m…
The lad is quality. He’s fighting it out with Robertson for the starting position with Scotland . I’d be very surprised if he ever played for burnley. (Unless injuries curtail his progress)
It is not that Kola is terrible at defending, but we were so predictable last season in terms of patterns of play. When you play LWB and he is your only attacking outlet, opposition is bound to exploit it. We need unpredictability in attack and in combimation play. Last season it was pass to fullbacks who would look to it. There was no element of surprise from xhaka torreira or ozil and when ramsey’s runs from the deep ended, our season.
Like I said last night, we probably fucked this one by being so goddamn slow. At the beginning of the window, all the sources kept saying that Celtic had set the price him at 25 million – so we bid 15, most likely hoping to get the price down to the 20-23 million range. Mind you, 25 million is not a bad price for a 22-year old British international player with Champions League experience, but we just had to penny-pinch. But seeing the kind of crazy money that gets thrown around this summer, Celtic has realized that there is more… Read more »
Arsenal being ‘slow’ is such an over-simplification of what’s going on though. Harry Maguire, Nicolas Pepe, Bruno Fernandes, Giovani Lo Celso. Just some of the players our main rivals are trying to buy but haven’t yet. Because no club, especially a British club, is willing to sell players to the top 6 without vastly over-inflating prices. Celtic legend Stilian Petrov said when we raised our bid to 25m that it was a shame Tierney might leave but Celtic was getting very good money for him. I think this deal will still happen because you don’t make multiple bids unless you… Read more »
I’m always amazed at the lot that wants us to “Start bidding at their asking price ” you do that and that’s no longer the asking price .
When Spurs sell England players (Rose, Trippier) for 20 mill each, how can an injury prone Celtic player be worth more? Walk away from the deal.
This is becoming a longer running saga than Eastenders… but without the unintentional humour. It appears that we can’t agree terms with Celtic so let’s more on! Time is running out in this transfer window and we’ve made some progress but nowhere near enough. We’re restricted in what we can do financially so let’s hope there are a good few other options to explore before 8 August.
Employing the always-clever “Ask for way too much fucking money” strategy.
Too expensive for an injury crock and we could probably spend similar or less on a player that is fit and good at playing left back?
Celtic have just spent £1.6m on a guy who can play CB and RB. They’re operating on Division One sized transfer budgets.
£25m would therefore be massive to them.
Whether he comes to Arsenal, or signs for someone else, the one that Celtic are definitely not, is ‘well positioned’ to keep hold of Kieran Tierney.
Yeah, and Celtic fans are convinced the club won’t reinvest the 25m into their squad anyway so it’s pretty wild the way Lennon (and some of our own fans) are acting like all we’ve offered them is a tin of used peanuts.
Celtic have so far spent over 13m. in this transfer window (on three players).At their last published accounts they had close on 50m in the bank that is without the sky payment that keep English football afloat. We have over 50,000 season ticket holders with a waiting list. If the valuation is met it will be up to Kieran to decide. Your attempt to sign him was a tad amateurish I am glad you have decided to move on.
Good. We don’t need to be distracted finding a solution for a position that can wait another season. We have a limited budget and we need to concentrate the money on 2 positions with quality additions rather than spreading the money thin. Does not seem to make sense chasing Tierney. Or spending 29m on a young defender that has barely featured last season and should he prove false will be a massive loss not to mention hard to move on. This before even mentioning him being rented out with no impact to our immediate tactical needs. How waste 55m on… Read more »
What would you guys think if we signed Toby A from the scum? Supposed to be a £25m release clause in his contact!!! Maybe we could sell mustafi for a similar amount lol but perhaps I am dreaming!!!
Fuck off, you dumb mutt.
Sad!
Loan deal for Ceballos,
Sign and loan back deal for Saliba will be announced in few days.
Possibly a winger announcement in final days of the transfer window, either Zaha or Everton Soares in permanent deal.
So I’m not guaranteed in Tierney deal or us buying CB in this transfer window.
*Tierney deal is 50-50 right now, it’s not over yet.
Is that you David Ornstein?
lmao. we are well positioned to keep a player that we could have made some money on. oh, and also, with or without him we would still win the league, the cup and maybe a couple of games in the champions league. way to be dumb celtic. nice job.
https://www.90min.com/posts/6413451-nabil-fekir-why-premier-league-clubs-should-be-queueing-up-to-sign-him Nabil Fekir Injury issue aside, ONLY 24m to Betis and offered to us at 30m (note price difference for different clubs) Why we were not in for him is beyond me. He would pair well with Laca (convince Laca to stay), has proven himself at highest level over many seasons (If Auba is good enough and Laca, its a strawman argument to say Fekir is not) and is still ONLY 25yrs! Betis have a steal for 17m plus 9m add ons. Another player we should have strongly considered is Ziyech. Only 22m according to Overmars who was a bit… Read more »
If left back is suddenly a major priority this year (although why center half is suddenly not a priority is beyond me…), then I look at what Everton just did by signing Delph from City for 8mil quid and wonder why the hell did we not take a look at him first…proven England international and at 29 still has 3-4 years ahead of him…and they got him for 8 mil!! That’s easily the bargain of the year…
https://theshortfuse.sbnation.com/2019/6/5/18653873/arsenal-stats-scouting-for-a-winger-ziyech-neres-bailey-idrissi-depay-cornet-lozano-bergwijn Shortfuse had something on Stats and wide players not too long ago. Can’t understand why we won’t go for Ziyech at 22m (according to Overmars) Neres, Lozano also worth looking at but Fekir at 30m when we prefer instead to consider and reject the much more dubious Carrasco for 32m and Zaha at 80m or 55m plus losing Nelson onloan? That does not make ANY sense. We could have had this done and dusted and had spare change to invest in a proper solution at Cback instead of again penny pinching and eventually running massive risk of wasting 29m… Read more »
Said at end of last season wouldn’t be a bad shout to try to go for Wolves diogo jota & 2 Leicester lads maddison/maguire putting forward they would replace with what are leaving and have proven quality PL experience.. got slaughtered with thumbs down 35-5, at the time I was completely miffed why so many couldn’t see what I was seeing apart from my 5 marvellous thumbs uppers, something we lacked for many years players to play in their rightfulll positions which may give some balance to our team. There is a true problem with our club not picking up… Read more »
Philipp Max of Augsberg. £18m, pure quality and younger than Tierney.
Yep, why are we so myopic! Tons of quality out there.
This is the one If really like to see us get over the line. Liverpool, while having a super front line and fantastic cb in van , their attacking game is based on the full backs who are two of the best around. Our season tailed off when Hector got along term injury. He’s as good as anyone and if we added Tierney we’d have two guys who would really release it attacking potential.