I played with Celtic hero at Parkhead and knew he'd complete emotional transfer return

Former Celtic winger Colin Kazim-Richards admits that he always felt it was always only a matter of time before Kieran Tierney returned to Parkhead.

Tierney has signed a pre-contract to come back to Glasgow's east end when his current deal expires at Arsenal, and it’s a move which has been met with great optimism by Hoops fans around the world, who cheered the left-backs name for four years between 2015 and 2019 when he starred for his boyhood club.

The 49-time Scotland international won four league titles during his time at Celtic, along with two Scottish Cups and two League Cups. He was a treble winner in the 2017/18 season under Brendan Rodgers and also a two-time double winner with the Hoops.

Tierney was widely regarded as one of the best players in the Scottish Premiership during his first stint with the club and notably made the PFA Team of the Season on three occasions while winning a hat-trick of Young Player of the Year awards.

He’s expected to offer valuable experience to the Hoops and is thought to be the likely replacement for Greg Taylor in the starting lineup next term.

“Celtic is Kieran and Kieran is Celtic”

Kieran Tierney has had mixed success at Arsenal since making the £25m move to North London in August 2019.

The left-back struggled with frequent injuries in his first season but became a regular in the latter part of the campaign as Mikel Arteta replaced Unai Emery and the club became FA Cup winners.

He picked up regular first team minutes when the club finished eighth the following season and played a useful role in helping the club return to Europe with a fifth placed finish in the 2021/22 season.

Tierney found first team minutes slightly harder to come by when Oleksandr Zinchenko first arrived from Manchester City and spent the 2023/24 season on loan at Real Sociedad before an injury-ravaged final season saw him limited to just 13 games.

However, Colin Kazim-Richards feels whatever happened next, Tierney would eventually be drawn back to Celtic.

He told betideas.com: "I think that regardless of whatever happened in KT’s career, if he went on to become the best LB in the world, he would have always returned to Celtic one day. He would have always gone back home.

“Obviously, he’s been heartbreakingly unlucky with his injuries. He could have been a massive player for Arsenal – they spoke about him as a future captain, everyone loves him there – but sometimes you don’t have the luck in your career. Celtic is Kieran and Kieran is Celtic. He loves Celtic.”

“KT and Browny were like butter on bread”

Colin Kazim-Richards played just 11 league matches for the Hoops during a loan spell in the 2015/16 season under Ronny Deila but in that time got to play alongside a young Kieran Tierney and a more experienced Scott Brown as he got to win the second of three league titles in his career.

The 37-time Turkish international says he expects Tierney to make a huge impact on the club and says in many ways the Scottish international will be glad to return to the club in the peak years of his career.

Kazim-Richards added: "He might be thinking to himself, you know what, while I'm still young - and I don't want to go back when I'm 34, 35, 36 - I can go back and still massively impact the club I love for the next five or six years. I can go there and be one of Celtic’s best players. I can play in the Champions League with my boyhood club. I can win more titles.

"The one thing I can say about him is, even if he would have had an absolute blinder at Arsenal, even if he wasn’t plagued by injury, he'd always go back home. I wouldn’t surprise me if he’s been calling his mate Scott Brown and asking him if he would want to go back! KT and Browny were like butter on bread. You know when it's minus 50 outside and he's in a T shirt, he gets it from Brownie. I love KT. I hope it all goes well for him because he deserves it."

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