Arsenal: Kieran Tierney the irrefutable priority

With deadline day looming, Arsenal are spinning a lot of transfer plates. However, there should be one that is the irrefutable priority: Kieran Tierney.

It has been a busy last two weeks of the summer transfer window for Arsenal. A club-record signing, rejected £30 million offers rejected for reserve players, the sales of young talent, potential loan departures, an apparent loan approach for the third-most-expensive player in history, the desperate race to find a centre-back, and the exit of a club legend, Carl Jenkinson, not Laurent Koscielny.

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And all the while, one name has been consistently flying under the radar, seemingly lost amid the guff that the panicked close to a transfer window routinely throws up every year.

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Kieran Tierney is apparently still a major target of the Gunners. Arsenal have made two offers rejected for the Celtic left-back, both of which have been rejected, and are expected to return with a more substantial bid in the closing hours of the window. But as the news cycle has upped in pace, the meandering saga for the Scottish international has slipped out of the media attention. But I sincerely hope that is not the case at the club itself.

The deals for Coutinho, Koscielny, Jenkinson, a potential centre-half and now Alex Iwobi are all major transfers that have to be completed, of course, and they do deserve an element of focus. But in terms of the impact on the team, both for the coming season and over the course of the next decade, other than the right centre-half — and even then, it must be more than just a middling veteran — none are as significant as a potential Tierney acquisition.

Signing Tierney brings more than just a good player into the team for a fair price. His arrival would first release Unai Emery to play the system that he wants to, with a back four and orthodox left-back, as well as locking down a crucial position for the best part of a decade, with Tierney having only just turned 22.

While signing Coutinho on a loan deal sounds wonderful, it is a temporary solution at a position where there isn’t a problem. Making key sales is important, financially, but they provide nothing to the team. A new centre-back is vital, yes, but any deal seems quite unrealistic at this late stage.

Meanwhile, Tierney is a genuine option, for an affordable price, at a club who are willing to sell, and is a potentially decade-long solution at a position where Arsenal have struggled to find elite play ever since peak Gael Clichy.

If there is one deal that Arsenal should be prioritising as the transfer deadline looms, it is Tierney. If others are completed as well, then wonderful. But it must be Tierney first.