Celtic could’ve had the now-Wolverhampton Wanderers star in 2015.
There is every chance that Celtic will be in the market for a left-back this summer. Kieran Tierney is having another exceptional season and it would surprise few on Parkhead if a much bigger club tried to tempt him away from Glasgow in the coming months.
Celtic fans would hate to lose such a popular and talented player, but you wonder if the 20-year-old’s career would have had the same trajectory had ex-Hoops boss Ronny Deila not snubbed a £500,000 deal in 2015.
According to The Record, Deila was quoted that figure by Lech Poznan for Barry Douglas, who has just won promotion to the Premier League with Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Tierney displaced Emilio Izaguirre and established himself as Deila’s first-choice left-back by December of the 2015-16 season, but would he have broken through and kept his place if the Norwegian manager had signed Douglas six months earlier? Does an 18-year-old Tierney even make the bench if Douglas and Izaguirre are there?
Keeping Izaguirre out of the side is a lot easier than forcing the Wolves star – who has started 37 games for Nuno Espirito Santo’s troops this season – to sit on the bench and it seems plausible that Douglas would have at least delayed Tierney’s emergence.
It remains to be seen whether Deila refused to budge on Douglas because of the price or because he knew of Tierney’s promise.
But the youngster had only made two Celtic appearances at the time of the link to the 28-year-old, so it looks more probable that it was an accidental masterstroke by the former Bhoys boss and one which has allowed Tierney to become the player he is.
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