If my Glasgow mates saw me eating rice and clams they’d say ‘You’ve changed!’
KIERAN TIERNEY is loving life in Spain after a tip from Arsenal pal Odegaard
KIERAN Tierney’s Real Sociedad might be pitting their modest, mainly homegrown squad against the financial might of Paris Saint-Germain tonight, but the 26-year-old defender on loan from Arsenal insists we shouldn’t rule out a surprise.
‘Most people will look at the draw and say PSG are favourites, but we topped our group and you don’t do that by chance in the Champions League,’ he tells Mail Sport. ‘Maybe we’ve got one of the tougher draws, if not the toughest, but we are really excited about it.’
The city of San Sebastian, where Tierney finds himself until the end of the season at least, has thought of little else since the draw was made. A hamstring problem has kept him out of tonight’s squad but he will soon return to the team who had the best defensive record in the group stage.
Tierney moved to Real Sociedad last summer. He was convinced the team was right and Arsenal team-mate Martin Odegaard, who played on loan there while a Real Madrid player, allayed any fears about settling in. ‘I did speak to him a lot and he was helpful,’ says Tierney. ‘They love him here. They would want him back any time.’ Odegaard’s San Sebastian recommendations were mainly food-based and it’s one of the pluses of playing for the club that Spanish cuisine doesn’t get much better than in the Basque Country. ‘The chuleton, yeah!’ says Tierney of the local steak. ‘It is the best I have had in my life. I’m not big on taking pictures of food but I make an exception when I order that. And there’s a dish that’s rice and clams. ‘See, just me saying this, I can see my mates saying, “You’ve changed man! When would you ever eat rice with clams? You never got that growing up”.’ Tierney might still be at Arsenal this season if not for injuries and for Mikel Arteta’s preference for inverted full backs. ‘At Arsenal the left back can be one of the most central players in the team,’ he says. ‘If it’s Oleksandr Zinchenko then he is one of the biggest creators from a central position.
‘When that got introduced it was alien to me. I had never played centre midfield, I started as a winger. I was trying to learn that when I was at Arsenal.
‘When you see how well it works it is hard to question it. My choice was to just get on with it and learn and I got to practise it with one of the best. It’s so natural to Zinchenko, he makes it look so easy.’
Tierney has a lot of affection for Arsenal, who gave him his first move away from home when he left Celtic in 2019.
‘Coming here was easier than going to London, and that’s not having a dig at Arsenal because they helped me massively. Without the people at the club it would have been 10 times harder to adapt, but I was four years younger and moving from Scotland, it didn’t matter where I went, that was going to be the hardest part.
‘It’s an amazing thing to go to play for Arsenal but you still have your hurdles to overcome. Then a couple of months later Covid hits and you don’t get to see anyone for months. The people at Arsenal were all amazing.’
At Real Sociedad the demands are similar to at Celtic, with coach Imanol Alguacil preferring his full backs to stay wide. It’s not the only thing that reminds Tierney of playing in Glasgow.
‘These boys here are like me playing for Celtic,’ he says of his team-mates. ‘Growing up, the club is all you know and all you want. When I was there in the first team there were maybe four or five from the academy but here it’s more like 13 — it’s on the next level. You can tell they have been playing with each other for years. It’s second nature — they don’t need to think about what decision they take.
‘I am still learning every single day but I think I am adapting to how they want to play and it’s more natural to me now.’
Will his future lead back to Arsenal? ‘It’s hard to say,’ he says. ‘I loved my time there and I still have two years on the contract.
‘I am very grateful to Arsenal. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I am absolutely loving it here. I feel I have adapted quite well and I hope I can return the faith the club have shown.
‘This is a very, very talented squad with world-class players and so many have come from the academy. It’s an amazing story.’