BRENDAN Rodgers has insisted there is no prospect of Kieran Tierney leaving Celtic in the near future – but admitted it is unlikely the Parkhead club will be able to hold onto the left back indefinitely due to the huge sums he can earn in England or abroad.
Rodgers was responding to the news that Atletico Madrid, the Spanish club who won the Europa League on Wednesday evening, will send a scout to watch Tierney in action in the William Hill Scottish Cup final against Motherwell on Saturday.
The Northern Irishman is confident the Scotland defender, who is still just 20 and is an ardent Celtic fan as well as a player, won’t be lured away imminently.
But he confessed the money that the PFA Scotland and Scottish Football Writers’ Association Young Player of the Year can earn elsewhere will make it difficult to retain his services if they receive a big enough offer.
“There is a dearth of good left-backs,” said Rodgers. “With Kieran’s qualities and huge potential still as a young player, that is always going to draw the eyes of top teams.
“Kieran has a great qualities. He has a really good temperament and that is getting better in big games. That’s important. Tactically, he understands the game much better. Physically, he can cope with any league in the world. He has got stronger and faster. He is playing at a big club.
“He’s a really exceptional young guy. He’s very stable in his home life and family are Celtic mad. He doesn’t let it (transfer speculation) affect him. You see his passion and love for Celtic.
“I’m sure there will be times over the next few years when that will be tested because obviously there will be a financial implication there that you have to think about, and he can’t not have that opportunity if it comes, to even think about it.
“But I don’t think it’s something that’s on his radar. He knows that to leave Celtic, ever, it has to be a win-win situation for him and the club. But he’s a player who’s not for sale. This is his second full season playing and he’s still got development to go. He is in a great place to learn.”
Asked if he would eventually have to move on in order progress further, he said: “Maybe at some point. But I don’t think it’s now. I think he’s still learning and getting better and improving and I think that will only come if there is that point where he’s not.
“You understand that at times when you play with better players in certain times in your career you improve, there’s no doubting that.
“It’s not about a club if you move, because he could move to a number of clubs if he wanted, it’s about it being the right club. I think at this moment in time in his life he’s at the right club.
“At a club like Celtic it’s quite natural, really, because it tends to be more that sort of moral issue that comes into it in terms of being on x amount at Celtic, another club can give him x and they give you that as a club. Then it’s very, very difficult for a young player, or any player, to then turn that down.
“I’ve been up here a few years now and everyone talks about loyalty and all that sort of stuff. But it’s also a business for players.”
“It has to work for both. If the player doesn’t want to go, it’s okay, we won’t be pushing him out the door. I just think it’s natural. The boy is 20, he’s playing for a huge club, he’s understanding where he’s at as a player, and he’s very, very happy.
“Maybe in the future an opportunity might come for him that he will have to look at and the club will look at, but at this moment in time it’s not even a conversation and I speak regularly with the boy in my office. We chat and talk and he’s living the dream really. He’s not ready to end it now.”
Tierney’s devotion to Celtic was obvious after the Scottish Cup final win over Aberdeen last year – he returned from hospital after suffering a serious facial injury to celebrate completing the treble with his team mates.
“His passion’s very clear and you can see that,” said Rodgers. “Some people can hide it but he doesn’t. If he wasn’t playing for Celtic and doing something else, he’d be in the stand.
“He’s a Celtic supporter and that means everything to him, but football’s a business now for players and I think he’s recognising that if you’re playing over 15 years of your life and you’re at this club for whatever – another four or five years – he might feel that this is the happiest he’ll ever be. Because when he leaves, he’ll arguably never be as happy but it’s your business.
“This is where football becomes a business. I hear now of so many players of years gone by, bless them, who’ve never earned the money and then people talk of loyalty and say, ‘Oh, they played this many games and what a player he was’.
“And then they say, ‘Oh he’s struggling at the minute.’ So, you have to look after yourself and that’s the modern world. But he’s a great kid and I’m sure he’ll be here for a few years yet.”
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