Kieran Tierney

Hope his agent enjoyed his trip to London today and his meeting with the Arsenal hierarchy after the game went to plan.

Be some buzz seeing this lad in the hoops tomorrow night.

 

But he's not ours. Arsenal could technically exercise the one-year extension at any time.

They know we need a LB and want him. We will pay the money.

 

No, they can't! It's not a slaves contract. An option is something both parties need to agree on, and Tierney already signed the pre-contract, so he'd never extend unless they offered something he found un-rejectable, which they won't.

We're not paying that for him. And rightly so... A loan for 6 months or a youth prospect at ~£2M is far better business... Anyone with a clear mind will know that, and it's gonna be about £1M or nothing... They can take the £1M and drop about £3M in wages out, or sit on a player who'll give them nothing until may and lose it all

 

No, they can’t. They only had up until the end of December 2024 to activate this and they’ve already given KT legal notice that they’re not doing so.

That’s not strictly true. It depends how the clause is negotiated in the initial contract. It can be a club option, therefore completely at their discretion; a player option, therefore completely at their discretion; or mutual, therefore both have to agree. I believe in this case, it was entirely at Arsenal’s discretion.

Quite often there’s a “break” payment included as part of the clause. For example, if the club don’t exercise their option to extend the deal then a one off payment is due to the player. It will be significantly less than their salary for the year, but even 6 weeks is a hefty chunk of cash when wages are over £100k a week. Again, it just depends how the clause was initially negotiated, but that payment would usually only be payable if the player sees out his contract. The type of thing agents and clubs negotiate on when a player wants to go, but wants as much of the money “due” as possible.

 

Yes, actually I forgot that could be an option - that he was essentially signed on an extra year, with the option for the club to exercise NOT to take him for it...

 

Would be delighted to get this deal done today. Left back is the highest priority purely because we only have one.