Kieran Tierney

The Celtic Way takes a deep dive into the making of Kieran Tierney, who went from Celtic youth team's fourth-choice right back to a £25m move to Arsenal. We spoke to former Celtic assistant John Collins, as well as the players he was competing with for a place on the team, about Tierney's rise, as well as his journey back to his boyhood club.



Precocious, young talent... and a meteoric rise
He was invited to a Celtic first-team training session in 2014, supposedly to make up the numbers. Five years later, the Hoops were crunching figures worth £25 million. Amazingly, the most expensive footballer in Scottish football history was discovered largely by accident rather than design.

The rise and rise of Arsenal and Scotland defender Kieran Tierney’s football career has been nothing short of meteoric. Back in 2014, a solitary Celtic first team training session was all it took for the club's managerial duo of Ronny Deila and John Collins to realise that they had unearthed a potential star in the making.

What happened next is fairytale stuff. Incredibly, Tierney was the fourth-choice left-back for Celtic U20s at the time, and above him in the pecking order were Joe Chalmers, Calum Waters and Aidan McIlduff.

How did Tierney parachute into the Celtic first team from nowhere? How did the youngster with the precocious talent oust every one of his contemporaries and go on to displace Emilio Izaguirre in the left back position as well as become a first team regular and firm Celtic fans' favourite?

Former Celtic, AS Monaco, Fulham and Scotland midfielder John Collins takes up the story. The ex-assistant manager said: “We needed an extra body to join in at Celtic's first team training. Joe Chalmers, Calum Waters and Aidan McIlduff had all gone away to play in a U20s game, and Kieran Tierney was left behind.

"We always watched the reserves playing, and we were well aware that Joe, Calum and Aidan were ahead of KT in the pecking order at Celtic. I am one of those people who believe that age means nothing… absolutely nothing. We are involved in professional sport, and the only questions that need to be answered are quality and ability.

"Some people talk about age, but the younger the better as far as I am concerned, especially if you possess the ability and talent that KT did. We took KT to first team training that day, and we could not believe what we were seeing. KT immediately caught Ronny’s eye as well as my own. He ticked so many boxes.

"He was so hungry, showed a great attitude, he had great application, and as you see now, that is exactly what he showed in that first team training session.



Collins continued: “KT loved training, and he was dedicated to his craft. He was flat out every session from the first minute to the last, and he was so focused and switched on. From a coaching perspective, he was a dream to train, and that is what you love on the training pitch.

"Like KT, I got my opportunity at Hibs under the great Pat Stanton at Easter Road, and I never looked back after that. It is always nice when you can give somebody an opportunity from the academy. It is special when a player comes through the ranks, and in KT’s case, he was also a Celtic supporter. He got his chance early on, and he took it and went on to become a first-team regular.

"Off the pitch, he was a good listener. That is such a key point in the learning process, he was willing to listen at all times to Ronny and me and improve his game. Ronny and I both saw KT’s potential early on, and we knew we had a potential star in the making. KT was just so hungry for information and education. He was so dedicated.

"You just knew KT was something special and he would go on to bigger and greater things from a very early age. He had that controlled aggression as a defender. His distances were also good, and whenever the ball arrived at the wide player's feet, he was always arriving at the right time.

“He never once let a winger drive on to him. That is a great attribute to have for a full-back. I don’t think KT was ever out of the Celtic first team once he had established himself in it. I always stressed to the young players at Celtic that once they got that coveted first team jersey then they had to earn the right to keep it.

"There is always somebody who wants to take it off you, and never take it for granted.”




The chance first-team training session that changed it all
Speaking on Simon Ferry’s Open Goal show in August 2020, Tierney revealed that luck had played a huge part in his ascension into Deila’s first team. Indeed, he was contemplating a working life outside of football if he did not make the grade with Celtic.

After impressing the Celtic boss Deila, Tierney’s football life and career trajectory would never be the same again. The Norwegian gladly took the teenager under his wing. Tierney said: “I was fourth or fifth choice left back for the U20s. Some guys were being offered three or four-year contracts. I was thinking that I would have to get a job with my dad.

“I got offered a one-year plus expenses deal. I was never going to say no to it. All I wanted to do was to play for Celtic. When I was 16, it was Aidan McIlduff, who was the left back, and he was playing ahead of me. He graduated to the U20s whilst I played for the U16s.

“When I was 17, I went to Lennoxtown, and the likes of Joe Chalmers, Calum Waters, and Aidan McIlduff were all in and around the first team. One day, all three of them travelled with the U20s to an away game. John Collins came and said they needed an extra body to train with the first team. I went up and trained, and Ronny Deila instantly loved me.


“I was 100 per cent nervous about training with the first team, and I knew I was up against Darnell Fisher at the time. He was solid and hard as nails. We were really going for it hammer and tongs, and I loved that. I was taking people on and crossing the ball over and not letting people get past me.

“Right after the session, Ronny came up to me and shook my hand. I had a cracking session. I had just trained with the Celtic first team, and it felt too good to be true at the time, and it all seemed like a dream.

“I would train with the Celtic first-team, yet I still wasn’t even playing for the U20s. When I first arrived at Lennoxtown, nobody knew who I was. They knew Aidan because he, Joe and Calum were all playing for the U20s. They were all good players.

“I hadn’t done anything to be playing ahead of them, so there was no expectation on me, which helped.




Leapfrogging over Joe Chalmers and Calum Waters
Tierney’s direct left-back opponents, Chalmers and Waters, can testify to the fact that he was developing into something of a footballing phenomenon.

Neither man admits to possessing a touch of the green-eyed monster at the fact that Tierney had gained his first team crack at their expense. It is testament to Tierney’s humility that they both remain good mates with the Gunners idol to this day. They both insist that Tierney has never been afflicted by a ‘big-time Charlie’ attitude.

Tierney is still the same humble guy who pitched up at Lennoxtown with a headful of ambition and even loftier dreams. The same player who was once pictured walking into Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane for an English Premier League clash armed with his football boots and toiletries tucked into a plastic Tesco carrier bag.



Former Ayr United and Dunfermline star Chalmers admits he knew immediately that ‘action-man’ Tierney was going to leapfrog over them all. He insists that it was only a matter of time before Tierney started to make his mark with Celtic.

He revealed that even taking part in warm-ups alongside Tierney, he was a force of nature. Chalmers said: “All I could remember back then was that KT was a bit of an action man. He was three years younger than I was, and he was a bit raw, but even during the warm-up, he would just get right into it.


He would come right out of the blocks at 100 miles per hour. Everybody else would be doing light jogging, and KT was sprinting to the max. When he trained with the first team, all that rawness just seemed to disappear overnight, and as a player, he came on leaps and bounds. KT is a boy whom we all wanted to do well and succeed. His success is our success, and there was never a hint of jealousy with the likes of me, Calum and Aidan.

"At the time when he broke into the first team under Ronny Deila and John Collins, I was out injured, and by the time I came back, KT was beginning to make his mark.

Chalmers continued: “There was a spell at Celtic where the left-back position was a problem. KT was supposedly the young one coming through behind us, but after that first team training session, he ended up going above us all and filling that void in the Celtic team.

“Mentally and physically, KT was just different. He had power and total aggression, and he was always on the front foot. He was mentally strong as well as tough, and nothing ever fazed him. Through training with the first team and working with good players and good coaches daily, KT developed his game massively.

“KT, when he had the chance to cross the ball or shoot, was always about the power, and he’d smash it in as hard and fast as he could. Over time, KT has developed that side of his game, and he knows when to do that and not to do it now.

“When you watched him play for Celtic, Arsenal and Scotland, you could see that he has different types of crosses in his armoury now.”



Former Celtic defender Waters, now at Alloa Athletic, was similarly impressed with his teammate. “Sometimes in football, you need a wee bit of luck, and Kieran got his chance and took it. We were never jealous of Kieran," he added.

“He was an absolute inspiration to Joe, Aidan and me, most definitely. It was more the realisation that when he started to break through to the first team, you quickly realised this guy was the real deal.

"When Kieran started to break into the Celtic first-team environment, we noticed how fast he could run and how quick he was. He had exceptional speed. He also worked on his upper-body strength, as he has massive legs.

"I knew when he made that transition up from the U20s to the first team that there would be no stopping him. When you train with better players, you improve your own game. His confidence levels also shot up as he started to hold his own.

"KT will remember as far back as playing with U11s level alongside myself that at Celtic that you just had to win. If you didn’t win, it was a crisis at every level and at any age.

"We just tried to emulate the first team by winning every week, and looking back, it helped build a winning mentality and a will to win in players like Joe, Aidan, me and Kieran - these are the kind of things that stood Kieran in good stead.





The dream Celtic debut...after a nightmare leg break
A broken leg sustained on the eve of his competitive Celtic debut in December 2014 could not dampen KT’s fire or enthusiasm. He would make his Celtic first team debut barely four months later, away to Dundee at Dens Park in a 2-1 win in April 2015.

Tierney feared that the Hoops were going to blow a 2-0 lead when he took to the field. The nine-minute cameo meant the world to him. “By Christmas, I was training with the first team every day," he said.

“I made the bench against Ross County just after Christmas, and then Ronny Deila told me I was starting against Partick Thistle in February. We trained inside the day before, and I went into a tackle with metal studs on, and I broke my leg. The day before I was finally set to make my Celtic first team debut, I broke my leg. I hadn’t told anybody I was starting. I had gone from a massive high to a huge low.



All I ever wanted to do was play for Celtic. I finally came on for my debut against Dundee away. I was a nervous wreck when I got the call. I came on and we were 2-0 up. My shirt was tucked right into my shorts, which were pulled up to my neck, and I looked like Simon Cowell.

“I looked like a wee skinny boy who had been plucked out of the crowd just to play for Celtic. Dundee scored with a counter-attack to make it 2-1. I thought we were going to concede two goals, and I have only played the last ten minutes. Thankfully, Celtic won the game 2-1.

"I celebrated by running over to the fans, and I went off my nut doing fist-pumps, and we had only just scraped past Dundee. It felt brilliant.

"I started against St Johnstone a couple of weeks later and the rest, as they say, is history.



A star was born in 2019 - the story continues...
Tierney’s first Scottish Premiership title would soon follow under Deila and Collins during the 2015/16 season. Back-to-back domestic trebles were also plundered under Brendan Rodgers in the next two seasons as KT swept the boards.

He scooped a total of six PFA and SFWA Young Player of the Year awards before the staggering multi-million move to the Emirates in the summer of 2019. An FA Cup winner's medal was also pocketed in his first full season with the Gunners.

His former coach is convinced that the seeds of Tierney’s stardom were sown during those early training sessions with the Celtic first team. He reckons that Arsenal spotted the same qualities in Tierney that both he and Deila recognised in 2014.

Collins is adamant that his mind regularly drifts back to that infamous training day at Lennoxtown. He derives enormous personal satisfaction from it. Collins said: “From those first training sessions with the Celtic first team, Ronny and I could see that KT loved to get forward.


He had great energy levels and possessed great pace. He had superb bursts of acceleration. He's a smashing player. Every team wants a left-footed player, and that was also a real asset for KT at the time.

"All clubs look for left-sided players or guys that can play left centre-half, left wing-backs or left wingers. We knew that KT possessed all the attributes to be a modern-day defender. I am not surprised that he has gone to the English Premier League and not had a problem adapting to Arsenal.

“People were asking, 'How KT would adapt?'. He was another Celtic player coming from Scotland to England, and is a big jump up, but rather like big Virgil Van Dijk, KT has taken to EPL football like a duck to water.

“It has been a piece of cake for him. KT had that inner self-belief which all top players must have. That belief in your ability can carry you a long way.

"He will never take anything for granted


Collins continued: “Every time I watch KT, he puts a smile on my face. Most coaches will tell you the same thing when they help introduce a young player into the team, and they see him going on to have a wonderful career, it is always satisfying.

“He is just such a mature and experienced player and has developed into a key player for club and country. Arsenal conducted a great piece of business when they splashed out £25 million for KT from Celtic.

“They are a massive football club, but at the moment, they are not regularly winning the biggest prizes. I am sure there will be lots of other clubs looking at KT and admiring him, that’s for sure.

“Kieran Tierney just grasped the nettle and his first-team opportunity with both hands when it arrived. I wish him every success.”

Whilst Tierney may have had the last laugh career-wise, ex-teammate Waters joked that he at least has one football story that he can dine out on forever. He said: “It is still a small claim to fame that I once kept KT out of the Celtic U20s team.

“Give it another 20 years and that story will grow arms and legs and will enter into football folklore!”

Good luck with that, Calum!




The Arsenal years
Tierney arrived at the Emirates Stadium as a 22-year-old loaded with talent. He spent six years in London playing for the Gunners, and during that spell, he amassed 144 appearances, scored six goals, and contributed 14 assists. He also won the FA Cup in 2020 and two FA Community Shields in 2020 and 2023.

The signing was viewed as a nod to Arsenal's future, and Tierney was earmarked as the man to hold down the left-back position for years to come. He endeared himself further to the Arsenal supporters when he was spotted carrying his boots to training in a plastic Tesco bag. The image resonated with the Gunners' rank-and-file.

He played a major role in the FA Cup win over Chelsea in 2020 at Wembley, as it was his ball over the top that saw Cesar Azpilicueta bring Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang down as he ran in on Chelsea's goal. The incident led to the 28th-minute penalty, which Aubameyang scored to restore parity at 1-1 after Pulisic had given the Blues the lead after five minutes. Aubemayang then proceeded to hit the winner in the 67th minute


Tierney's time in the English capital was sadly blighted by injury setbacks. He was plagued by injuries to his shoulder, groin, ankle, hamstrings, and knee, which eventually needed surgery, as well as being laid low by a viral infection in season 2020/21. In August 2023, he enjoyed a successful loan spell with Spanish La Liga side Real Sociedad, where he was labelled 'exquisite' by Real Sociedad boss Imanol Alguacil.

Tierney signed off his Arsenal career with a goal for Mikel Arteta's side on the final day of the 2024/25 season, with a goal and a Player of the Match performance against Southampton in a 2-1 away win at St Mary's Stadium. The player took to the social media site Instagram, where he posted a message titled 'One for the road' with heart and handshake emojis as he said an emotional farewell to his Arsenal adoring public.

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta paid a glowing tribute to the departing Scotland star. The Spaniard said: "Kieran told me I’m going to score in my last Arsenal match, and he’s done it!

"So, credit to him, a special thank you to him. He’s been part of the journey, and he’s won with me. He indeed went to Real Sociedad for a few months, but it’s been a joy to work with him, a special character. We wish him and his family all the very best.

"The doors of this club are open for him – he’s someone very, very liked at the club, in the dressing room, and we want to wish him the best."



Welcome home, Kieran
The Arsenal fans took him to their hearts. He will always be remembered with affection and appreciation for the effort and application he gave to the red and white of the Gunners' cause.

However, the lure of his boyhood idols was too great to resist, and when Rodgers and Celtic came calling when his current contract expired, there was only one place that Tierney was headed. Tierney, who will continue to wear the number 63 jersey for Celtic, said: "It was perfect timing for everybody. It had been in the works before, but it wasn't able to happen.

"This time, everything just fell into place. I spoke with the manager, obviously, I worked with him before, and I've always kept in touch with him. He's one of the best, and I'm so lucky and grateful that he's given me the chance to come back.


"I'm a different person, 100 per cent. When you move away from home, you grow up, and you learn different things. I was away in Spain for a year, I learned a different language, learned a different league, so I'm definitely a different person.

"Player-wise, I'll say, like I always say, I'll try and work my hardest and do my best for the club."

Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers added: "We are delighted to welcome Kieran back to Celtic. He is such a talented, high-quality player, and he will be a massive addition to our squad. Kieran has always had Celtic in his blood, and he is excited to be coming back to the place he loves.

"He is someone who has given so much to Celtic already, and I know he is so motivated and hungry to help the club bring more and more success to our fans."


Conclusion
The academy graduate who won 11 honours in his first spell at the club has now come full circle with his career and clinched a dream return to Celtic, signing a five-year deal in the process.

The club's prodigal son has finally come home.

 

Welcome back. Hopefully he can stay free of Injury because he's what we really need right now

 

Not sure he has it in him to pull his punches, but I'd happily have him at 90% for the whole season without injury, rather than blazing a traIl for 4months, with 2 out and another of recovery... Never that simple, but Tierney used correctly should survive up here without too much going wrong, if everyone is smart about it...

 

Like all Tims I'm glad he's back BUT wishing club had given him a pay when played contract, 5 year contract with KT's injury history makes no sense

 

He could have went to multiple clubs in the epl let alone Europe and you think he'd come here if we gave him some slave, zero pay zero hour contract? Naw.

 

Players contracts are often a mix of weekly wage and apperance bonuses sure, but I think the idea of them signing contracts only getting paid when they play is something that only really exists in fans imaginations, if it has happened in the past it must be incredibly rare.

 

Apparently part of the deal is a sponsorship agreement with Tesco

 

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