GARY KEOWN: Why the thought of Kieran Tierney and Callum McGregor being back together at Celtic is a matter of sadness – not celebration

Just the thought of it makes Celtic supporters giddy with delight. Kieran Tierney back in the Hoops, back for the Green Brigade with the megaphone, tearing up the left flank like he used to.

The rumor mill has been swirling about a return for the Scotland international since he was spotted speaking to manager Brendan Rodgers at a gala event for the club’s charitable foundation in London in October. day.

Rodgers didn’t exactly deny interest when questioned on Friday. It is now common knowledge that the likelihood of a deal is being actively investigated. There appears to be a willingness from all parties to hit the ground running, with Arsenal confirming they will not secure a one-year contract extension for the defender this summer.

It’s a big story, okay. An exciting one. Yet the prospect of a generational talent like Tierney returning to Celtic at the age of 27 is more a matter of sadness than celebration.

The idea of ​​him returning to effectively end his career at Celtic Park, alongside fellow academy graduate Callum McGregor, feels downright tragic.

Both men are extremely talented players. Both, especially if Tierney re-signs, will go down as figures of great importance in the team’s recent history. But looking beyond the partisan and parochial nature of the Scottish game, the feeling remains that both should be doing more with their careers than living like big fish in the stagnant, fragrant pond of the SPFL.

That boat, of course, left for McGregor. He was given the chance to go when Rodgers ended his first stint in Paradise to move south to Leicester City in 2019, and he was clearly happy with his lot in Glasgow.

His reward will come sometime in the next two seasons in the form of being crowned Celtic’s most decorated player of all time.

It will certainly be a special achievement. Something to eat out over the decades. A matter of justified personal pride.

McGregor has been a great servant for Celtic, a fantastic ambassador and face of the club, and should be understood for putting personal satisfaction above chasing dreams in England or abroad.

Yet it’s utterly impossible to think about the 31-year-old’s time in the game and not wonder how far he could go. Real have gone.

Rodgers wanted to take him to Leicester and have him, as a general on the pitch, impose his playing style on the rest of the team. He has since stated that he is convinced that McGregor – such an intelligent player with such a positional, tactical sense – had what it took to go on and play for one of the big six teams in the English Premier League .

That’s open to debate, of course, but it would have been nice to see him try. Instead, for all his medals and memories, the big question of how far he could have gone will always linger.

In that summer of 2019, anything seemed possible for him and Tierney. The world was at their feet.

At 26, McGregor was at the perfect stage of his career to make the big leap forward. As it was, Tierney was ultimately the one who got the door to the promised land of the English top flight opened for him with a £25 million move to Arsenal.

It’s where the two players’ stories differ. Tierney *tried* it. In the end, largely due to injuries, things didn’t go quite as planned. The move south also gave him a different experience when he joined Real Sociedad on loan last season, although fitness issues put an end to that too.

It’s easy to see why Tierney would be open to a return to Parkhead. He has stated in the past that leaving the club he supports to join Arsenal was a decision that kept him awake at night.

He claims playing for Celtic is ‘the ultimate’. He misses the place. Loves it. He has has challenged himself at a high level, satisfied that urge, and perhaps just feels like the time is right – pay cut or no pay cut – to return to the place he feels and calls home.

It’s just that he’s only 27, for crying out loud. There will certainly be interest from other clubs if he is free to agree a provisional contract in January.

If he can get himself into good physical condition and find a way to solve the injury problems that have driven him to bed, there may be other special adventures for him. Celtic will always be there. Maybe a stopover after another investigation into what might exist in other worlds. Another chance to see where his talent could take him.

Going back to Glasgow would feel like some kind of admission of defeat, an acceptance that he tried his luck at the highest level and it didn’t quite work out, that perhaps his body wasn’t up to it and needs a less demanding environment. in which to operate.

But who knows what else he will be offered? Perhaps nothing will excite him as much as Celtic, but shouldn’t he wait and see?

It’s just that the mood music indicates that he might not be. The boulder here is already running down the hill and increasing rapidly. The fact that Greg Taylor has still not agreed a new contract and Alex Valle has only joined from Barcelona on a season-long loan suggests that Tierney was always considered a longer-term solution for that left-back role, depending how Arsenal saw it. his future.

Listen, the concept of a guy like Tierney returning to the Scottish top flight in his prime will be seen by many as a real boost to the domestic game here. It should be a pleasure to see the likes of him and McGregor joining the Celtic team again.

And that will undoubtedly be the case. To a certain extent. But for those who understand the potential these two boys possessed, and can look at the world without the green-and-white tinted glasses, it will be a spectacle indelibly colored by regret and questions about what might really have been.

For all the cheering and shouting and lording over inferior opposition, it is indeed something of a tragedy.

Collum has his job to do… and people like Maxwell are making his job even harder

THE behavior of Scottish FA chief executive Ian Maxwell this week is truly raising more serious questions than ever about his fitness for office.

What was he thinking when he wrote off a clear penalty missed by VAR in a domestic cup final as ‘human nature’, nothing to worry about?

He made a comment about twenty fans in a room and came up with 25 opinions. Jeezy beeps. This isn’t about 20 gamblers in a room. It’s about three Grade One officials in a video suite who can’t see that Liam Scales pulling in Vaclav Cerny’s jersey is a penalty.

Maxwell is of course the man who introduced VAR by saying it would be a nightmare. He also told us that Hampden could eventually look like the Mercedes Benz arena in Stuttgart. And that’s just the beginning.

In reality he comes across as a former managing director of Partick Thistle who can hardly believe how lucky he is to be earning six figures a year. Just like the rest of us.

But in an attempt to ignore the punishment Rangers should have received in the Premier Sports Cup final, he simply poured fuel on the flames. And we now have to wonder where all that apparent ambivalence leaves him when his head referee admits that it’s not enough to just accept that a mistake was made, that the whole episode was ‘unacceptable’.

Maxwell was sure that Willie Collum would come out on official SFA channels to take responsibility for a disaster after his actions at the unveiling of a grassroots initiative. It’s inconceivable that he didn’t.

So why did he say the things he did? Why show such a lack of understanding of the issue? Why downplay? It shows a total inability to tackle situations seriously.

This is a crisis situation we are talking about, where any confidence in the system – from managers to players to supporters – has almost completely evaporated.

Collum has made great efforts in his new role, but when his boss writes off a cup final catastrophe and insists people should just accept that mistakes happen, it becomes clear what an impossible mission he is on.

The level of civil service in this country is appalling. Collum works with bad staff.

And after this week’s mess, simply admitting mistakes isn’t enough. Collum must explain in an open forum what the consequences of such incompetence should be. How exactly he’s going about the long-term project of reversing years of incompetence.

He would also have to explain why Alan Muir was appointed VAR for a final when he had somehow failed to award Celtic’s Daizen Maeda a penalty at Motherwell.

In reality, Collum is looking for nothing. Despite all his work, he shouldn’t have gotten this job. The SFA needed someone new, someone different, without baggage. For example, how does Collum lay down the law with his history of high-profile mistakes as a referee?

What is really needed is a properly independent look at the workings of the refereeing Old Boys’ Club.

But then the CEO method It seems like it’s all about just trying to deal with the next day’s news agenda and playing things straight rather than looking at longer term solutions – only to have his cod in his face anyway explode – what chance do you have?