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Arsenal: Kieran Tierney could damn well be perfect
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal have only seen two matches of Kieran Tierney, but I have no problem saying that he may well be the perfect player for the club.
Arsenal fans have seen a lot of many of our summer signings, but Kieran Tierney has been the one slowest to appear thanks to an injury suffered before his arrival. But now that he is here, there is literally nothing stopping us fans from going way over the top, and I’m going to go ahead and do that now, if you don’t mind.
Arsenal’s left back situation has been pretty set for a long time with Nacho Monreal. You could count on a steady performance. Maybe he’d manage an extraordinary play or two a month, but overall he was very six or seven. He was very generic.
That’s not always a bad thing. But then we added Sead Kolasinac and we had a huge push/pull where we gained a lot and lost a lot. Sure, he attacked well, but he didn’t deliver the ball well. Sure, he was strong and physical, but he doesn’t hold his position well.
Arsenal vs Standard Liege Player Ratings. light. Related Story
But Kieran Tierney? Kieran Tierney is something else entirely. And yes, I know it’s early. We’ve seen him beat up on Nottingham Forest and Standard Liege. Not exactly cream of the crop.
That said, you can see skill when it’s there. This isn’t skill that only works against lesser clubs. This is skill that will translate up the totem pole. And it involves everything that a modern fullback should be doing.
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Defending? Check.
Manning his position? Check.
Driving play forward? Yes, please.
Passing and creating chances from dangerous areas? Premium.
Tierney is doing it all, and he doesn’t even look stretched to do that much. As if there’s even more he could do, if he could only think of something else useful to put his mind to.
Again, it’s early. I’m not crowning him the greatest leftback in the history of the game. But watch this guy play and you feel it. You see something special, like we haven’t seen before. And that’s why it’s so exciting to think about what comes next. Because the groundwork has already been laid for something incredibly special.
Next. 5 Things Learned Against Standard Liege. dark
Now all we need is to get him up to the Premier League where he can dominate against proper opposition. Then we can finally call him the greatest leftback in the history of the game.