Neil Lennon has told a press conference that Kieran Tierney is ‘more than welcome’ back at Celtic after the Arsenal star claimed that he was ‘scared’ to return as a supporter.
Speaking to The Open Goal podcast this week, Tierney, who’s proven himself a revelation at Arsenal since joining for £25 million last summer, admitted that he was intimidated to go back to Parkhead as a fan due to the animosity that some of the Hoops’ faithful have against him.
The 22-year-old is a product of Celtic’s academy, playing a big role in the Scottish giants winning an unprecedented treble Treble in Glasgow.
But the young Scot claims that he was bombarded with abusive and threatening messages on social media once his move to the Emirates Stadium was confirmed.
But Lennon claims that these are from people ‘pretending to be’ Celtic fans, insisting that 99.9 percent of the fanbase will love him forever.
The Northern Irishman said: “We don’t want him to feel uncomfortable coming back because he is more than welcome here that’s for sure.
“He is a great player. He has already won a major honour at Arsenal and he went with everyone’s best wishes. Sometimes you get people on social media pretending to be Celtic fans and it is a platform that leaves you open to abuse or praise, whatever way you want to look at it.”
Lennon is absolutely, 100 percent right here.
The vast majority of Celtic fans will have a huge amount of affection for Tierney, even if he did leave before 10-in-a-row.
But it’s worth noting that the player himself more than likely had little say in the matter, given that £25 million was and still is the highest amount of money that the Bhoys have ever received.
Even if he begged to stay, it’s hard for Peter Lawwell to turn down that sort of money and that 0.1 percent of Celtic supporters must keep that in mind.
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