With the addition of Jurrien Timber and already having Takehiro Tomiyasu and Oleksandr Zinchenko as left-backs, one Arsenal defender has seen himself listed as a surplus under Mikel Arteta. Scotland international Kieran Tierney likely has seen the last of his time as a regular starter at Arsenal. He was not a part of Mikel Arteta’s squad that took on Nottingham Forest in a 2-1 on August 12th.
La Liga side Real Sociedad is interested in signing Arsenal’s Kieran Tierney
Fabrizio Romano is reporting that Arsenal would like to permanently sell Kieran Tierney to Real Sociedad, who, to date, have only asked about the fullback on loan. Negotiations between the two clubs are expected to continue, but other clubs are also monitoring Tierney’s situation. It is expected that Tierney will be moved out of the squad one way or another by the end of the window.
Kieran Tierney joined Arsenal in the summer of 2019, joining from his boyhood club Celtic where he was made into a star. Unai Emery briefly coached him, but he has played 112 matches with Arsenal under Mikel Arteta. Last season Tierney was still a regularly used player by Arsenal, but perhaps the writing was on the wall when he only started five matches in the Premier League.
What may throw all of this into a loop is the potential long-term injury of Jurrien Timber. Mikel Arteta gave a pretty unclear response to Timber’s injury timeline, but the defender going down of the ball is not a good sign.
"“No, the officials, the doctors, they looked at him and they were happy to continue, him as well, but straight away in the second half the first action he made a movement and it was a bit funny so we took him straight out and now we have to assess him to see what he has”. [source]"