Matt Macey has officially called time on his lengthy spell as an Arsenal player.
The 26-year-old has quit the Gunners to join Scottish Premiership side Hibernian on a permanent basis.
Macey joined Arsenal in 2013 but a lack of first-team chances under Mikel Arteta has seen him attempt to rebuild his career north of the border.
The goalkeeper never made a Premier League appearance for the North Londoners, but did play in the Europa League and other cup competitions.
Being honest, an exit made perfect sense because he looked nowhere near even a squad place under Arteta.
And Macey has revealed that it was Scotland international Kieran Tierney who recommended life in the Premiership to him.
Tierney joined Arsenal in 2019 after helping Celtic to a number of trebles, and here’s what Macey said about the 23-year-old via The Standard: “I spoke to Kieran Tierney at length about the opportunity to come to Hibs, about Scottish football and the country in general.
“Kieran was really positive about every aspect of it, whether it was the club or Edinburgh itself. As I said, I was already keen to come but it was good to hear him talk so enthusiastically about it all. He backed up the gut feeling I had.
“Kieran’s someone I have a lot of time for and he’s probably one of the first names on the team-sheet – if not the first – at Arsenal just now.”
It could be a baptism of fire for Macey on his potential debut, because the Edinburgh club are away to Tierney’s old side Celtic on Monday night.
When you haven’t played a lot of senior football in recent years, this could be the definition of being thrown in at the deep end for Macey and it’ll be fascinating to see how he fares.
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