IT’S THE LAST TANGO IN PARADISE FOR STAR DUO
THE understanding that Celtic are now ready to enter serious negotiations over the sale of Kieran Tierney should not be lost on his team-mate Callum McGregor. If it is, indeed, accepted inside Parkhead that it is time to cash in on 22-year-old Tierney and let him take his career to the next level, the same rules ought to apply to McGregor, four years his senior.
There is simply no point in these guys hanging around in Scottish football any longer at a club, although fancied to remain dominant, downsizing and showing little real sign of possessing a coherent, long-term plan.
This bizarre agreement to have Nicky Hammond filling in as director of football over the summer only heightens concerns Celtic are freewheeling a little behind the scenes right now in the wake of leaked transfer documents, leaked team lines, the quite befuddling David Turnbull saga and the unpopular appointment of Neil Lennon as manager.
If McGregor and Tierney aren’t asking questions about the club’s general direction of travel, they should be. The way it looks right now, they have already outgrown it and hanging around much longer is only going to make them stale.
McGregor will surely need no reminder of that as he prepares to return to work little more than a couple of weeks on from finishing a mammoth 69-game season that saw him play more minutes than anyone else in world football.
The versatile midfielder has a real shot at making it big and is at the perfect stage — with over 200 first-team appearances behind him and experience of European and international football — to seek new challenges.
Should Celtic remain stubborn, he ought to be prepared to push to get out of the escape hatch behind Tierney, sure to attract an improved offers after Arsenal’s £15million opening bid.
Celtic are pushing for the mythical 10-In-A-Row, of course, and should achieve it. That prospect might appeal, to some degree, to the dyedin-the-wool punter that exists within Tierney alongside the relentless and ambitious young professional. But even then…
Shouting at the Green Brigade through a loudspeaker is a good laugh, no doubt, but you wouldn’t
want to make a life out of it when you can be challenging for the Champions League.
Whether McGregor can reach that level remains to be seen, but the opportunity should be there this summer for him to make a real stepping-stone move towards such ultimate ambitions.
Several clubs will be keen and it is hard to believe Brendan Rodgers’ interest in taking him to Leicester City is over even though he may have retreated for now. There’s lots of manoeuvring to be done before this window closes.
Rodgers loves a project. His undoubted talent on the training ground transformed McGregor’s career during two-and-a-half years together at Celtic and made him the player he is. Wouldn’t Rodgers love to keep building on that work by making him a real property in the English Premier League?
It would be a golden opportunity for McGregor as well. Swapping the SPFL for the shark-infested waters of the EPL carries no guarantees, but going there to work with a manager who clearly believes in you delivers some degree of assurance.
Rodgers used McGregor on the left and right in midfield, at left full-back, as a holding midfielder and as a No 10. He joked last season that if New England Patriots legend Tom Brady got injured, he’d probably get a call from the NFL for him to go and play quarterback.
That flexibility is of such value within a squad. And although you can’t exactly hang your hat on everything Brodge says, his words on the player were so effusive that a reunion must remain attractive no matter Celtic’s early positioning.
‘He’s just got the in-built brain for football. His view of the game is up there with the very best,’ said Rodgers. ‘The only problem with Callum McGregor is that when you move him, you wish you had another Callum McGregor playing the position he has just left. My team tend to play in different shapes to surprise opponents. But you need clever players, tactically, in order to do that.’
Of course, in some quarters, letting Tierney and McGregor go in the same window would be seen as tantamount to selling the family silver. Even suggesting it should happen is likely to see you marked down as a secret agent for the great Masonic conspiracy known as ‘Operation Stop The Ten’.
The thing is, though, that it has to become the standard way of operating for Celtic. They had their crack at doing something big in Europe with Rodgers, ran up a £60m wage bill and blew it.
They need to build themselves completely around raising players, giving them the platform, selling them on when the time is right and having the right replacements already lined up or coming through the academy.
If Ajax can build a sustainable model capable of coping with selling Champions League stand-outs Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt in the same window, Celtic should be ready to withstand McGregor shipping out alongside Tierney.
Those two leaving along with Olivier Ntcham — an empty jersey, really, since his pal Moussa Dembele stomped out last summer — could easily raise in excess of £40m. Added to the near-£40m already in the bank, that is a serious warchest with which to build a whole new club and strategy.
This should be a time of great opportunity for everyone at Celtic. McGregor and Tierney possess the ambition, ability, momentum and strength of purpose to make the very most of it.
Whether the same can be said of those above them in the pecking order is a rather more perplexing question.