Celtic can’t afford to back away from bids for Tierney
(AND THEY SHOULD TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN WITH BOYATA)
THERE will be misty eyes, talk of life-changing decisions, inordinate use of the word ‘wrench’ and a wee bloke in the editing suite at the in-house TV channel crafting a slow-motion montage of hard tackles and warm farewell hugs from the elderly and disadvantaged of the — nicely dressed in a syrupy coating of the old fiddle-de-dee music.
All part of creating a narrative, selling an idea that remains unpalatable to those still living under the misapprehension that the Parkhead club actually mean something in the pan-European scheme of things.
The truth is clear, though. Celtic have to sell Kieran Tierney. And Tierney has to go. All being well, someone drunk on World Cup fever might be rash enough to pay a premium for Belgium stalwart Dedryck Boyata before August is out as well.
If there is a £25million offer on the way for Tierney, there is no decision for anyone to make. We all love the romance of this little guy’s rise to prominence, an exceptional talent reared inside the bosom of Parkhead, as comfortable leading the supporters in song with a loudspeaker as wearing the captain’s armband.
We lap up these sentimental storylines in Scottish football. Just as we amplify the rows, the larger-than-life characters, the unvarnished rawness of much of it. Alongside our rivalries, squabbles and general pantomime, they give us something to cling on to as yet another World Cup, for example, comes and goes with the national team further away from the party than ever.
In reality, football, as a global interest, tends to be about different things. Namely, cold cash and colder ambition. Laughing at erratic Portuguese blokes standing in a bush in Luxembourg and clubs posting links to porn videos on Twitter, wonderful as it may be, is of limited currency elsewhere.
It doesn’t pay the bills here either, truth be told. Celtic are built to promote and then flog players and, having brought in almost £70m in the past six years, they are, generally, very good at it.
In the face of low-grade TV money and the route to the Champions League looking progressively more complicated, that has to become an ever more intrinsic part of the business.
They are open about seeking to deal directly with the top four in England. Selling straight to the clubs with the money rather than taking cash up front from Southampton and a percentage of the fee two years later when the likes of Virgil van Dijk moves on for £75m.
There has been a hope that Tierney might be the one to bring that breakthrough, but the market makes its own rules.
If the best offer for Tierney is £25m from Everton with a decent sell-on clause, it is well worth taking. Life is good for Celtic right now with ready access to £30m-a-year from the Champions League, but changes are afoot and that cash cow may not be there for much longer.
Celtic need to keep banking money in anticipation of leaner times and sourcing the next line in up-and-coming talent. They should have sold Moussa Dembele in his first season when the hype was high. They certainly shouldn’t make the same mistake, no matter what manager Brendan Rodgers says about a new deal, should interest in Boyata harden as the World Cup develops.
Remember Artur Boruc after Euro 2008? He came back from a good tournament with Poland, talking about being a £10m asset. He ended up going to Fiorentina for £1.7m two years later.
The Boyata on TV right now is the same Boyata who sold the jerseys against Molde and Malmo under Ronny Deila. He’s the same Boyata who invited Kingsley Coman to score for Bayern Munich at Parkhead last term. He still goes through phases in games when he exhibits the concentration span of a fruit fly half-cut on over-ripe plums.
Celtic should be pushing to punt him for a decent sum. It would leave them looking around for a centre-back (again!) and make life harder than they might like, but selling and replacing players is now the way of it for Celtic managers.
Rodgers knows it, too. It is why he can only have a limited shelf life here. Whatever the reasons, every player at every club in Scotland is up for sale at anything remotely close to the right price.
With Boyata, it might be a case of taking advantage of circumstances. With Tierney, it is more about letting a young eagle spread his wings and fly.
There is a hardcore of Celtic fans who still ask why he would contemplate swapping trophies and Europe at Parkhead for a mid-table existence at Everton, but it is self-evident.
Huge wages, for a start, and a clear pathway to the elite. The same way Southampton helped Van Dijk up the ladder and Hull City allowed Andy Robertson to join him in playing for Liverpool in a Champions League final.
Tierney, the punter, has lived the dream. He became an Invincible, created history with a double Treble and became an icon in the stands.
Tierney, the professional, however, is only getting started. What would his ambitions in Europe with Celtic really be? Getting past Kazakhstan’s finest in a qualifying play-off season after season? Keeping Barcelona or Paris Saint-Germain down to single figures next time? He has a real shot at making it to the top. It would be nothing short of a travesty if a lad of such talent remained at Celtic for life.
Behind the endearing yarns about the boy who still plays computer games with his pals lies a hard, improving competitor who has worked relentlessly to get to this point. He stands on the brink of something special, something that clubs in this little country, unless there are earth-shattering political developments with cross-border competition, can no longer hope to deliver.
We all have our own little ways of protecting ourselves from the real world, of making harsher truths more palatable, of telling ourselves that Scottish football is still a worthwhile place in which to escape and dream. There is no doubt that it is.
But it doesn’t have enough to hold players of Tierney’s ability any longer. And we all know it, really.