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Celtic: Peter Lawwell believes club sold Kieran Tierney for the right price

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Image for Celtic: Peter Lawwell believes club sold Kieran Tierney for the right price

Celtic chief Peter Lawwell believes that the club didn’t sell former hero Kieran Tierney to Arsenal for a cheap price and the fee they received was the right amount.

The Hoops’ executives and club manager Neil Lennon were involved in a recent Q&A session recently and one of the questions posed forward for Lawwell concerned Tierney’s sale to Arsenal.

The club’s chief said: “The ambition is maximising potential of this great club, and going as far as we can go in Europe. Celtic is not a selling club, if you get a player like Kieran (Tierney) the attraction of a team like Arsenal becomes too much.

“As much as we wanted him to stay, it’s our job is to get most money. I don’t believe Tierney was sold cheaply. Ajax hadn’t won league four years before their bold new dawn. Would you take Rangers winning the league for four years to maybe reach a Champions League semi-final?”


A star in Glasgow

Tierney was sold to the Premier League giants in the last few days of the summer transfer window for a fee of £25 million, about five years after he broke into the club’s first-team scene in 2015.

Tierney had made his first-team debut for the Hoops at the end of the 2014-15 campaign in a league game against Dundee, coming on as a late substitute. He went onto make another appearance that season, featuring in a game against St. Johnstone.

Tierney became a regular from the 2015-16 season onwards, playing 33 times in all competitions that season. He also racked up a tally of one goal and eight assists that season.

In his last campaign for the Hoops, Tierney was the club’s first-choice left-back. He played 40 times in all competitions, scoring once and assisting six times too.

Did Celtic sell Tierney for the right price?

Yes

Yes

Should have asked for more!

Should have asked for more!

For the Gunners under Unai Emery so far this season, Tierney has made eight senior team appearances, playing once in Premier League 2 as well. He has made three starts in the Premier League and has racked up two assists in the Europa League.

TIF Tactics

Tierney’s current value stands at £22.5 million – £2.5m less than what Celtic sold him for. His value in January stood at around £11 million and since then, there has been a sharp rise.

Transfermarkt shows that the rise didn’t happen after the move to the Emirates, but it had started around January itself. In that sense, Celtic did very well to extract a good amount of money from the Gunners in the deal for the 22-year-old. And they replaced him in a cheaper way by signing Greg Taylor from Kilmarnock. That should go down as good business.

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European Football Writer. Contributed for FootballItalia, Manchester United, Manchester Evening News, Calciomercato, GFFN and more.