Kieran Tierney

Every team in this league is physical.

There was no excuse for not having him as a back up option on the bench.

 

I've said it a few times mate.. it was always the game plan I feel.. KT, 60mins..Scales to LB..

St. Mirren are very physical, with powerful STs..more so than most other sides.

Definitely, wasn't the game for Inamura.

 

If the manager doesn’t think a player is up to the task, he doesn’t include him in the squad. It’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact.

 

He's class but you can see he only bursts forward a few times here and there. Probably has that fear of injury..

Was turning them inside out easy first half getting balls in but loads of times would slowly build the play and stick a dinked/floaty ball for Maeda..

 

Not sure about that being the reason, I’ve seen him not care about that at all and burst forward whenever through the years he’s been injured and came back from it.

I think him and Maeda were more not used to the other, they occupied the same positions that the other were looking to attack and were a bit disjointed on the wing. And that’s to be expected that, the understanding will come through games.

Tierney since he went to the Premiership, he doesn’t attack for the sake of it, he picks when it’s on, when he has the space. If not he’ll support and maintain position to not be caught. Maeda at us on the left has always played with needing to fill in going back, with the LB being inverted he had to cover that wing. And we aren’t inverted, the ball is fed to him differently we’ve tweaked it and Tierney is hugging the wing with him, it’ll take a couple of games.

When Maeda starts moving inside a bit sooner, you’ll see Tierney bombing up more. He needs to start the move one wee bit earlier than he would have last season, when we play in Hatate, then he should make the move drag away defenders and Tierney will fill that space. Previously that’s not been the style down the left. Look at us on the right last season, that’s more the style, when Kuhn would with Engels getting the ball, and AJ would bomb forward.

It doesn’t look disjointed because the three on that side are high quality when it’s KT, Hatate and Maeda. It won’t look that way, but it’s not free flowing until they know exactly what the others doing not needing to think about it.

 

@Liam Scales

Jeezo Dev, you struggling to sleep or on a quiet night shift?

 

Trying to stay up for tomorrows night shift mate

 

Good man, get the post count up while you're at it

 

Alistair Johnston has hailed Kieran Tierney's impact at Celtic - both on and off the pitch.


The defender has slotted back in like he has never been away after returning to his boyhood club from Arsenal.

While not a like-for-like replacement for the inverted Greg Taylor at left-back, Tierney has already turned in the sort of displays that he was expected to when Brendan Rodgers secured his return on a pre-contract agreement.

Playing on the other side, Alistair Johnson is full of admiration for the Scotland man, who he says has been "unbelievable."

Tierney has also filled the gap Taylor left off the park with his personality and also has that intangible of having Celtic in his DNA.

Johnston said: “It’s been great and he's a big personality. That was something that we needed with Greg Taylor leaving.

“Losing him was not only big on the pitch but off the pitch as well. Having Kieran come back in is great.

“He's talented beyond belief as a footballer and also just a good lad who gets the football club.

“That’s another thing that can't be downplayed. How important it is to have people who are born and bred Celtic men.

“That is important. Kieran just has the DNA to play here. It’s been great to have him in.


He’s a great lad and he gets it as a lot of people would say.”

One slight conundrum is that the team no longer has that extra man in midfield with a full-back stepping in, as that is not Tierney's game and nor is it Johnston's.

The Canada international admits it is something that is going to have to be discussed and sorted out.

He said: “We’re going to have a bit of a tactical thing to figure out in terms of Greg was an inverting fullback.

“Me, Tony (Ralston) and Kieran definitely are not. So we’ll see in terms of what the gaffer is going to plan around how we’re going to do that.

“Kieran kind of joked it’ll be rock, paper, scissors to see who has to do it. But no, we’ll figure that out.

“I think there’s a world where we both play kind of as more traditional fullbacks and we find that extra number in the midfield in another way.

“In the past couple of years, I haven’t been inverting but the positions that I take up when the ball is on the other side are still technically inverted positions to a degree compared to what a normal fullback would do.

“I wasn’t doing what Greg Taylor was doing, who was literally just standing in the middle!

“But when you watch him, he was unbelievable at it, how he moved off the back of the winger and found space.

“It’s going to be a challenge for all of our full-backs to kind of find that balance if we are going to try and do some of that.

“But we’ll see what the coaching staff has in mind.”