IN a great new series Record Sport has teamed up with BT Sport to bring you highlights from their new podcast ‘Currie Club – The Scottish Football Sessions’, hosted by Darrell Currie. The latest episode, out now, features Kieran Tierney. The episodes are available every Friday for free across popular podcast platforms. ‘Currie Club – The Scottish Football Sessions’ispartofanewline-upof podcasts, BT Sport Pods, from BT Sport. Visit btsport.com/pods
Kieran Tierney has revealed Brendan Rodgers begged him not to sign for Arsenal – three years before he ended up moving to the Emirates.
Tierney spoke out in this week’s episode of the Currie Club podcast in an interview with BT presenter Darrell Currie and Record Sport columnist Chris Sutton. And in looking back on his meteoric rise from an academy graduate at Lennoxtown to a £25million Scotland stalwart, Tierney told how it may never have happened had Rodgers not persuaded him to put his move to north London on hold during the Northern Irishman’s first few days in the Parkhead hotseat back in 2016.
The 25- year-old said: “We went into a meeting on the very first day. We had a presentation – ‘This is who I am, this is what I’ve done, this is what I believe and this is how I want to play’. Then he introduced his staff as well with a PowerPoint on what they had done. We thought, ‘This is the ultimate professional, this will change us as a team’. I also think it helped Scottish football massively as well, him coming in.
“I also remember the first conversation I had with him because there were rumours of me actually going to Arsenal that season as well. I think they had placed a bid. But he spoke to me and said, ‘We want you to stay here. We want you to play and get all these games under your belt. Become a senior pro and not just a young player’.”
Tierney and Celtic went on to sweep all before them under Rodgers. They romped to the Invincible domestic clean sweep in their first season together, the first leg of a historic treble Treble.
Diehard supporter Tierney grinned and said: “It was amazing. You probably don’t realise it until now when you’re sitting talking about it.
“At the time you’re just living it, you’re not thinking about it. It’s just normal to you because you’re doing it every day, in the routine.”
But in an ironic insight into the Champions League suffering currently being endured across the city – where Rangers are still licking the wounds from a 7-1 thrashing from Liverpool – Tierney admitted the pain of crushing defeats on Europe’s biggest stage was hard to swallow during that trophy-laden run.
That included a 12-1 aggregate routing over two legs by Paris St-Germain. Asked by Sutton if Rodgers ever tailored his tactics to survive against the best, Tierney said: “In the year before, if you look at the first two games, the approach people wanted us to take was a back five. But we went to Barcelona, we tried that and it was 7-0. Then we went back to the way he saw us performing our best and we drew 3-3 with Manchester City.
“That’s what we took our confidence from, even though we knew we were coming up against better teams with better players. That was how we played at our best.”
Asked if the players were put off by those beatings, Tierney said: “I don’t think you could be. It was tough to take and they were hard times. Before the season you just wanted to play in the Champions League and give it your best shot. But when you’re there, you don’t want to be there just to be a number and a team that gets beaten every week.”
Sutton added: “The issue Celtic had that season is there were far too many wallopings suffered in the Champions League.” Tierney agreed and said: “Yeah it was tough. Although people know you’re playing against PSG, one of the best teams in the world, they’re still criticising you.
“People talked about the ‘system’ but the system was to defend well, be compact and be hard to beat. There were just times when we weren’t. We made a lot of mistakes when goals could have been avoided easily. I don’t think the fans would expect you to win but they did expect you to show a bit more.
“We were all out there trying to keep up with Neymar, Edinson Cavani and Kylian Mbappe. We were trying our best but we were still young.”
Tierney then spoke about the morning when the bombshell news dropped of Rodgers’ shock departure to Leicester. The Scotland inter-national said: “I just remember the night before, speaking to all my mates and saying, ‘There’s no chance, we’ve not heard anything, it’s just rumours’. Then the next morning I woke up, my mum had the radio on and she told me. It all happened so quickly.”
Five-and-a-half months later, after a third successive treble, Tierney left for Arsenal in a record-breaking deal. And he admitted the transfer broke his heart. He added: “It was so hard. There wasn’t one moment where I was thinking, ‘I want to leave Celtic ’. But you know if a club are going to sell you or not. You’ve got a feeling inside you.
“At the time it made sense for everybody really. They’d brought someone through the youth academy who they were so proud of and he’s going for a record fee.
“I’m someone who loves the club. I’ve given everything from the day I joined at seven until the day I left and I was going on to play for a huge club who believed in me and backed that up with £25m.
“It was something that worked for everybody but it was the hardest decision of my life as well. I was so excited to go to play with and against the best players in the world – and it’s such a massive club –but it was heartbreaking.”
