Pre-season thoughts: Kieran Tierney + Ben White and England

Morning all, an early Wednesday blog for you.

I watched a video of the players back at London Colney for pre-season training, and I was slightly surprised to see Kieran Tierney alive and well. It’s not that I expected him to be the opposite, it’s just I had assumed that the injury picked up at the Euros was such that he’d be out of sight for a while.

To be fair, he was just standing in a corridor with Martin Odegaard rather than doing sprints and stuff like some of the others, so he might not be 100% fit, but hopefully he’s not too far away. It’s such a shame for him that the opportunity of putting himself in the shop window at the Euros panned out the way it did. It was basically the worst possible outcome for him and for the club. He spoke beforehand about the likelihood of moving on, and it seems fairly clear Arsenal would accept his departure this summer if the right offer came in.

As I’ve said before, I think he’s a player who could do a job for lots of Premier League teams, but if you were in the market for a left-back, you’d be taking a risk with Tierney because of his injury record. There’s no sugar-coating it, unfortunately. Interested parties may weigh up a move for him and a similar player who may not have as much quality but a lot more in the column labelled ‘availability’, and go with that other option. If there is a club out there willing to take on the risk, chances are some of that would be mitigated by the offer they’d table to sign him in the first place.

Let’s see what happens with him, but the fact he’s active around the training ground could mean there’s a chance a departure before the end of the window hasn’t been completely scuppered by that injury. Beyond that, there’s not a lot else going on in the training ground footage, although I suppose it’s mildly interesting that Albert Stuivenberg was there given the various links to other jobs during last season. It doesn’t preclude him taking an opportunity…


Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/07/pre-season-thoughts-kieran-tierney-ben-white-and-england/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-07-17 05:11:12

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