Aidan Nesbitt suggests Celtic academy graduate Kieran Tierney has been Hoops’ best player for last two seasons

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Aidan Nesbitt has been incredibly impressed by Celtic academy graduate Kieran Tierney.

Kieran Tierney has been Celtic’s best player for last two seasons, according to his teammate

Aidan Nesbitt has suggested to the Evening Times that Celtic’s academy starlets can take plenty of inspiration from Kieran Tierney and insisted that the young left-back has been the Hoops’ best player for the last two seasons.

Tierney has been a revelation since bursting onto the scene during Ronny Deila’s tenure, establishing himself as the finest left-sided defender in the Scottish Premiership and giving Brendan Rodgers a justifiable reason to continually overlook an option as reliable as Emilio Izaguirre.

And his emergence should undoubtedly inspire the current crop of Bhoys youngsters. And Nesbitt – who has spent the campaign out on loan with Scottish Championship side Morton – can seemingly not praise Tierney high enough.

“You take inspiration from the other guys,” he told the Evening Times. “Kieran has been arguably Celtic’s best player for two seasons now. He’s still 19, only just turning 20.

“Kieran is the perfect example of if you are given a chance and take it then that’s you cemented into the team.

While there are certainly players who have perhaps been more impressive at times, Nesbitt is probably right if you look across the two campaigns with few players covering themselves in glory during Deila’s final season, while the likes of Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair have only been at Parkhead for one year.

Aidan Nesbitt will be hoping to be given the chance to try and emulate Tierney

And the 20-year-old will be hoping that, upon his return from his loan spell, he can earn the opportunity to show that Tierney’s ability to settle into the first-team is not an anomaly as far as the Celtic academy is concerned.

But given how good the Scotland international has actually been, all of the other academy starlets arguably face an even tougher task with the standard being set so high.