NOW I CAN SAY I’M A BIG BHOY
Tierney thrilled to be part of the Celtic first team dressing-room By JOHN McGARRY
FOR any aspiring football er, they remain the smallest yet most significant steps in a fledgling career.
Up until a few weeks ago, Kieran Tierney’s every working day began with a lonely walk from the Development Squad changing room onto the first-team pitch.
Regardless of the impressive displays he produced upon mixing with the club’s seasoned professionals, the nagging feeling was that he was some kind of interloper who had temporarily escaped his natural domain.
If that view would seem harsh to anyone who has witnessed the teenage full-back deliver a string of barnstorming performances since making his debut at Dens Park last April, an invitation to move a few yards along the corridor into the first-team dressing room on a permanent basis provided welcome confirmation that he truly had arrived as a Celtic player.
‘I’ve been in the first-team dressing room for about a month now,’ said the 18-year- old. ‘ The coaches came to a decision that I was ready and I was obviously delighted at that.
‘The boys gave me a bit of stick at first, saying I’d have to sing a song, but fortunately that didn’t happen.
‘ They must have heard me speaking about it. Then the sports scientist told me I’d be moving in the next couple of days. It’s a small thing but it’s significant. I’m with the boys all the time now.
‘Before, I’d come in in the morning and be chatting with all my boys in the youth dressing room but then going to train with other players. Now everything is with the first team.
‘At the start, the young guys were giving me a bit of stick, jo king that I’m changing. But I still talk to them as much as I always did. I feel more involved in everything now and I’m probably a lot closer to the senior players. I speak to them more than I would if I was in the other changing room and we text each other now. ‘They are treating me as a fellow first-team player, but then they have always done that. They’ve always been good with me and not treated me like a young boy.’ It’ s perhaps easy to overlook the fact that Tierney is exactly t hat, given his mature displays. Like any 18-yearold, the physical demands of the professional game were initially taxing. Of his first 10 appearances in Celtic colours, just four spanned 90 minutes. Cramp often took hold after 60 or 70 minutes as he bounded up and down the left flank.
Sensibly, Ronny Deila nursed him through those early forays by curtailing his involvement. The teenager has thrived as a result.
‘It’s been great to get a good run of games now,’ said Tierney. ‘I’ve played seven 90 minutes in a row. At the start of the season I’d worry about my fitness as it was hard at the end of games.
‘I feel stronger within myself now. At the end of games, I still feel I can sprint down the line on the overlap.’
If the loan signings of Jason Denayer and Patrick Roberts might have been seen as a slight on young talents in the Lennoxtown system, Tierney’s emergence is a timely reminder that the club’s preference is to rear its own.
Not only has the teenager made it into the first team, he has stayed there. An experienced international in Emilio Izaguirre has been dislodged in the process. Come the summer, the exit door beckons for the Honduran.
‘We still have the same relationship we did last season,’ Tierney insisted. ‘We train together and afterwards stay back to do crossing together. We don’t dislike each other. We’re among the closest in the changing room.
‘That says a lot about Emilio because every player wants to play. We’re both working hard for the same place in the team.
‘I hope he stays. I can understand if he’s not playing he may look elsewhere. He’ll want to be playing as he will want to keep getting picked for his national team.’
It goes without saying that Tierney will be contemplating international commitments of his own later this month, although it would be a brave man to predict at what level.
Although the Scotland Under-19s, who face Bulgaria and Croatia in their next series of Euro qualifiers, are the natural fit in terms of age, a place in one of Gordon Strachan’s two squads to face the Czech Republic and Denmark would be on merit.
‘I’m not thinking too much about that yet,’ Tierney added ahead of tonight’s game with Dundee. ‘I’d be OK if I was picked for the 19s instead of the national squad.
‘Scotland have Andy Robertson at left-back and it just depends what they think would be a better experience for me. As an 18-year-old, it’s just great to be mentioned.’