Arsenal and Kieran Tierney: Just bloody pay it

Arsenal have had two offers of £15 and £18 million for Kieran Tierney rejected. Celtic want £25 million, which is completely fair. It’s time to stop messing around just bloody pay it.

Arsenal are trying to sign a new left-back. They have the man they want. They are readying their offer. They make a preliminary enquiry regarding his availability and how much he might cost. And then, upon gaining this information, they make an offer for just over half of that price. That offer is rejected, of course, so they come back with a second bid, an improvement of a massive £3 million. And that offer, surprisingly, is also rejected. Yes, this is a professional football club.

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This weekend, the Gunners made their interest in Celtic left-back Kieran Tierney. The Scottish champions slapped a very fair £25 million price tag on the 22-year-old defender. In response, they received first a £15 million and then an £18 million offer, both of which were rejected.

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This farce is not the first time that Arsenal have embarrassed themselves when trying to sign a player in the transfer market. The £40 million and £1 bid for Luis Suarez. The endless loan with an option to buy bids just because they cannot afford the actual price of the player. And now this. A £15 million offer for a player who is easily worth the £25 million demanded in the modern market.

I do understand why they made the bid. They want to get the best price possible, of course. Anyone would, especially when millions of pounds are being negotiated. And if Celtic had demanded £50 million for Tierney, Arsenal would be well within their rights to drive a hard bargain. For instance, I do not think there would be the same backlash if they offered £48 million for Wilfried Zaha, which is 60% of the £80 million price tag, the reason being that everyone understands that Zaha is not worth £80 million.

But the major difference here is that £25 million is a very fair price for Celtic to ask for. This is a wonderfully talented defender who has only just turned 22, has already won five SPL titles and earned the treble-treble, and could lock down the left-back position at the Emirates for a decade. In the modern market, that kind of player is worth far more than £25 million.

There are some concerns regarding the quality of competition, which is always the case when buying from SPL or Championship sides. But for Arsenal to think that they could sign Tierney for the same price that Manchester United signed Daniel James for in the same summer is utterly naive, oblivious, and actually quite arrogant and rude.

Jordan Ibe cost £15 million. Dominic Solanke was £19 million. Virgil van Dijk cost £13 million at 24 years of age, not boasting the same winning pedigree or potential of Tierney. And so, all of this is to say: if you want Tierney, stop messing about and just pay up.

Quite how a professional football club can continually act like this is deplorable. Such inefficiency and humiliation in the market that is never learned from. It beggars belief. Hopefully, then, Arsenal do not let another star slip through their fingers because they couldn’t be bothered to claw out the change from behind the back of the sofa.