Kieran Tierney reveals emotional reaction upon Celtic Park return
The left-back made his first appearance at Parkhead in six years on Saturday, coming on to a standing ovation in the 56th minute during his side's friendly win over Newcastle United.
He quickly got back into the swing of things, assisting the last of Celtic's goals in the 4-0 victory.
Tierney beat his man on the left before delivering a cross for Liam Scales to score.
Read more:
Johnny Kenny makes Celtic striker claim after scoring vs Newcastle
Celtic winger Marco Tilio 'set' for Rapid Vienna move
Former Celtic players Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair reacted to his comeback on Instagram.
Dembele posted a heart-eyes emoji, while Sinclair responded with two raised hands.
Erik Sviatchenko simply wrote, "Goosebumps."
After the match, Tierney admitted to feeling emotional when he came off the bench.
He told Celtic TV: "I didn't know what to expect.
"That was just brilliant.
"I was quite emotional actually, going onto the park like that.
"A great day for me."
Reflecting on the match, he added: "They're [Newcastle] a good team.
"It just shows, the quality we've got, when we play like that, we can give anyone a game.
"And the goals we scored were brilliant today."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
4 hours ago
- New York Times
Alexander Isak could cost £250m to sign. This is why – and who could afford it
Alexander Isak wishing to leave Newcastle United is one thing; working out who could afford to buy him is quite another. Newcastle hope any serious transfer fee conversation will start at the mind-boggling figure of £150million ($203m). To put that into context, it would make Isak the third most expensive footballer in history, behind Paris Saint-Germain recruits Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. Advertisement The field of possible destinations looks slim. Even ignoring the football factors, the financials in play are huge and an obvious barrier to entering the Isak market. Buying Isak for £150m is more like a £171m transfer once we add in some estimated agent fees and, if the buyer is a Premier League club, a four per cent transfer levy. From a profit and sustainability rules (PSR) perspective, spread over a five-year deal, those fees alone would add £33m-35m to a club's costs. Then there are Isak's wages. His exact demands are unknown but given his status as one of the world's leading players a range of £250,000 to £300,000 a week is far from unreasonable. At that level, the hit to a club would be £15m-£18m annually. Essentially, it's fair to say signing Isak would lump £50m in annual costs onto his new club — and that's just from an accounting perspective. It's often forgotten that clubs will need to pay the money in cash eventually and, over our hypothetical five-year deal, Isak would probably cost a new suitor more than £250m. Plainly, that rules a lot of teams out. But can anyone afford it? In Italy, Juventus have lost around £670m in the past four years. Both Milan and Inter are recovering financially but the fee for Isak would be more than two-fifths of their most recently published revenues. Napoli, Serie A winners last season, have posted impressive profits recently and boasted a strong cash position at last check. They would be the most feasible Italian suitor yet still an unlikely one; their most recent wage bill was lower than Newcastle's. In Germany, Eintracht Frankfurt's heady player sales have imbued them with cash and regulatory headroom but signing up to a commitment like Isak is fanciful. Their 2023-24 revenues were £213m, so his signing would cost over 70 per cent of annual turnover. Advertisement Borussia Dortmund's wage bill in the same season, when they reached the Champions League final, was only around £12m higher than Newcastle's, so meeting Isak's demands seems unlikely even with the club on a generally sound footing. Dortmund weren't expected to spend much this summer and have already spent their Club World Cup earnings on Jobe Bellingham and Yan Couto. Bayern Munich are a possible option, but success in their other plans, like getting Luis Diaz from Liverpool, would reduce that likelihood. The German champions are the fifth-highest-earning club in world football, according to Deloitte, and consistently profitable, generating a £135m pre-tax surplus in the past five seasons. Financially, Bayern are one of the few clubs who could afford Isak — they showed as much by being realistic contenders for the signature of Florian Wirtz earlier this summer. But the fact they are prioritising other targets would slim the chances of a deal for Isak. In France, like with most big-name players these days, only PSG could afford him. They are unencumbered by lax financial rules at home and have enjoyed huge income from the Champions League and Club World Cup recently. Wages fell with the departure of Mbappe last year, but they remain big spenders. Compliance abroad is trickier — PSG are in a 'settlement regime' with UEFA until the end of this season, so there are some limitations on their spending. Still, moving on someone like the unwanted Randal Kolo Muani would feasibly open a space for Isak, both in the squad and in terms of remaining within any financial rules. Cash tends not to be a problem in the French capital. In Spain, Barcelona are having enough trouble making room to register players they've already signed. Atletico Madrid just about break even but have high debts to service and, based on most recent figures, the amortisation cost of signing Isak would be more than half their total amortisation bill. They've spent big (£65m) on Julian Alvarez since those figures were released, but that in itself likely rules them out of being able to enter the market at over double Alvarez's price. Real Madrid tend to be able to afford just about anyone and recently announced 2024-25 revenues of €1.2billion (£1.0bn), the largest in the world. Even with Mbappe's huge wage coming onboard, Madrid were profitable last season, to the tune of €24m (£20m) after tax. Even so, they have pressing needs elsewhere, and there are only so many huge salaries you can take at once. Real have already spent just shy of £150m in transfer fees alone already this summer, and doubling that again looks unlikely, even for them. It's not impossible, but it is improbable. Advertisement And so, what of England? The world's richest league is naturally the one where clubs could most realistically afford Isak, though even here he'd be limited for actual choice. Tottenham Hotspur have the PSR headroom but unlikely the cash or space on the wage bill, which is kept notoriously low relative to income, and especially as they're already spending this summer. Further south, as we detailed in June, Brighton & Hove Albion have much in the way of regulatory headroom but are plainly an unrealistic option. That same piece outlined Chelsea as, ludicrously to some, the club with the greatest scope to spend from a PSR perspective. They don't want for cash, having received not far shy of £1bn from their current owners, but this deal, alongside their other activity this summer, would be pushing things. Particularly as Chelsea are in their own UEFA settlement regime, and the impact of recent intra-group asset sales won't boost their PSR calculations forever. Chelsea are already in the position of needing to sell players to free up space on their Champions League squad list and, in any case, it's unclear how Isak's salary would line up at a club where there's been a concerted (albeit sometimes overstated) effort to reduce staff costs. Arsenal were long viewed as a viable landing spot for Isak, but the imminent signing of Viktor Gyokeres casts clear doubt on that. Even without Gyokeres, they have spent over £100m already this summer, albeit after a lean year last season (net spend: £20.9m). Arsenal probably could afford the £50m annual cost of signing Isak, especially as revenues continue to rise, but their activity this summer (both completed and pending) would mean they'd very much be pushing toward their limit by doing so. Manchester City have plenty of money and PSR headroom, even after spending some £300m or more since the turn of the year. They could afford Isak, having booked nearly £200m in profit in the past three seasons. Football reasons seem a more likely impediment to moving there. Across town, Manchester United have been heavily loss-making in recent years but, as The Athletic detailed in June, their PSR losses are much lower than previously thought. United remain the fourth-highest-earning club in the world and have undertaken significant cost-cutting over the past year. Advertisement From a PSR perspective, they may well be able to stretch to someone like Isak, even without Champions League football this year. But cash is another issue. United's transfer debts were over £300m net even before the recent signings of Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, and their need to sell players this summer is more cash-focused than rules-based. To that end, adding Isak's wage and paying a huge fee to Newcastle looks highly unlikely, and would rely on either a further injection of shares (Sir Jim Ratcliffe invested £238.5m in 2024) or adding to an already hefty debt pile. Remarkably, despite their £300m-plus spend already this summer, Liverpool represent the likeliest Premier League destination for Isak. The Anfield outfit would need to sell players but are already planning to; the departures of Diaz, Darwin Nunez or Harvey Elliott, or even all three, would provide a boost to profits and cash, and help them back toward the policy of sustainability driven by Fenway Sports Group over the past decade and more. Liverpool have been able to spend so much this summer through careful financial management, and it's exactly that which keeps them in the frame for Isak — even at the huge asking price. It's a tall ask, even for a club as well managed as they have been, but the conditions to do it really are there: low transfer debt, strong cashflow, surging revenue and saleable assets to help offset the hit both now and in the future. Away from the Premier League, the oil-soaked elephant in this particular transfer room is the instance whereby Isak's overarching employer doesn't change. Al Hilal are, like Newcastle, owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and, at the risk of stating the obvious, have no financial worries at all. Since being taken over by PIF in June 2023, Al Hilal have spent over £400m on new signings and goodness knows what more on wages. If they want to sign Isak, they can afford to. The financials would be easy from Al Hilal's perspective, and while selling to a club of such supreme wealth might comfort Newcastle fans in the knowledge they'll get a chunky fee for Isak, the reality is more nuanced. Advertisement Under Premier League rules, any sale to a fellow PIF-owned club would require a 'fair market value assessment'. In other words, if the league deemed the fee spent by Al Hilal excessive, Newcastle would have to revise down their profit on Isak in their PSR calculation. The ramifications of a move to Saudi Arabia would be even worse on the continental stage. Under UEFA rules, player sales between related parties — which Newcastle and Al Hilal are — have to be measured at zero profit (or a loss), just as Allan Saint-Maximin's move to Al Ahli in July 2023 was. Isak could be sold to Al Hilal for £150m and Newcastle would enjoy the cash, but under UEFA rules, they'd be disallowed from booking any profit — thus doing nothing to improve their ability to remain compliant on the European stage.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Journalist Says PSG Can Afford Liverpool Target Amid Newcastle United Exit Rumors
When it seemed as though Alexander Isak would remain at Newcastle United despite the rumors that have gone on since the start of 2025, the speculation of the Swedish star leaving the Magpies is again emerging. Isak has reportedly expressed a desire to explore a possible move away from the club during the summer transfer window. Craig Hope of the Daily Mail first reported the development, noting that Isak was not among the players traveling with Newcastle's squad to Singapore for their preseason tour. Additional reports have since emerged regarding the Swedish striker's situation—news that will come as a blow to many Newcastle supporters. Transfer expert Fabrizio Romano has also weighed in, stating that Liverpool continue to hold interest in Isak despite recently completing the signing of Hugo Ékitiké, who officially joined the club this week. Could PSG go after Alexander Isak?Amid the rumors, The Athletic's Adam Crafton believes PSG are the only European club that can afford to pay for Isak and left the door open for a transfer between Newcastle and the Parisians happening. 'If there's a European team who could afford to go and get Isak, it is probably last season's Champions League winners,' Crafton wrote. 'They have history for big-money buys too, smashing the transfer world record to sign Neymar from Barcelona for €222m in 2017. 'These days, however, PSG are a little more reserved and head coach Luis Enrique has developed a finely tuned system that does not necessarily use a conventional No 9. At the start of this window, Isak was not among PSG's priorities, but it remains to be seen whether that may change now he is publicly agitating for a move.'
New York Times
14 hours ago
- New York Times
Newcastle United, Alexander Isak's wish to leave, and the challenge of being elite
Newcastle United are an elite team. They are fresh from winning a trophy in their second cup final in the space of three seasons. Over the same period, they have finished fourth, seventh and fifth in the Premier League and they are back in the Champions League, where they last played in 2023-24. Europe, competing, winning; these things are becoming their natural domain. They have an exceptional head coach and some brilliant players. Advertisement Newcastle are not an elite club. They do not have a purpose-built training ground and St James' Park is ageing. At £83.6million ($113m) in their last published accounts, their annual commercial income is dwarfed by those of the traditional 'Big Six' (Arsenal, who earned the least of them last season, still raked in £218.3m). As things stand, they have no sporting director and have not appointed a successor to Darren Eales, the chief executive, who is on medical leave while serving his notice. An elite club needs an elite team. It could also do with a strategy. These twin threads — of what it takes to be elite — snake back over two or three years, as Howe's first team has raced ahead of a club scrambling to rebuild after the inertia of the Mike Ashley era while hemmed in by the Premier League's profit and sustainability Rules (PSR). On the one hand, they have spent big since their Saudi-led takeover in 2021, but on the other, Anthony Elanga's recent arrival from Nottingham Forest came after three successive transfer windows with no first-team-ready signings. Somewhere in the middle of all that stands Alexander Isak, a player who has developed under Howe into one of the most complete forwards around, a game-changer and a match-winner who has scored 20 goals or more in consecutive Premier League seasons. If the £60m Newcastle spent on Isak in 2022 was a calculated gamble — the Sweden international had huge potential but could drift towards the periphery — it has long since paid off. This summer, Newcastle have been given a brutal education in what being elite entails. Several oven-ready players they have either targeted or approached — Bryan Mbeumo, Liam Delap, Joao Pedro and Hugo Ekitike among them — have moved to more established clubs, either in terms of history, reputation or paying power. And now, Isak, their most important and valuable asset, wishes to leave and has been omitted from their pre-season tour to Asia. Advertisement In isolation, this kind of thing can happen to any club. Isak did not grow up a Newcastle fan who dreamt of scoring in front of the Gallowgate End. As a fanbase, as a region, we yearn for people to be swept away by our beautiful madness, to get us and buy into us, and Isak has done that while becoming part of a team that has delivered a moment of immortality. Yet careers are finite and he has a right to look around and consider his options. At Liverpool, who recently expressed an interest in buying Isak for £120m, Mohamed Salah has commanded a basic weekly wage of £350,000, which The Athletic has reported was actually closer to £1m once external commercial endorsements were taken into account. Salah was the only player to score more goals than Isak in the Premier League last season, but Newcastle's highest earners are on around £150,000-a-week. In relative terms, that is not stratospheric. Away from the training ground, there has been a degree of confidence regarding Isak's position over recent months. After the shambles of a year ago, when PSR was pressing in and Newcastle sold Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh to raise £60m and head off a double-figure points deduction, they no longer need to sell. With Isak having three years on his contract, they felt they were in a position of strength, although this was always dependent on the player's attitude. Discussing a new deal with Isak was always part of the plan this summer. An elite club like Liverpool could offer him £300,000-a-week, but could Newcastle? 'We aren't the biggest payers in the league, because we don't generate the most income,' Howe told reporters after Newcastle's 4-0 friendly defeat to Celtic last weekend. 'So, we have to fall in line with PSR, be very smart with what we do. We have to control the wages of the players we have.' It is not particularly helpful to point out that Newcastle have a baked-in disadvantage here, just as any upwardly mobile club does. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Newcastle's majority owners, have the wherewithal to pay elite salaries and elite transfer fees, but the system does not allow it, and although that system is designed to protect football from unbalanced spending, it also serves to protect those already at the top. Advertisement How do ambitious clubs circumnavigate that or compete with it? They get bigger, and in Newcastle's case, their overall revenue for the financial year 2023-24 was £320.3m, a 28 per cent year-on-year increase which Eales described as 'unprecedented growth in football.' Pretty impressive until you see what they're up against; for the same period, Manchester City's revenue was £715m, more than double. The other way is to sell, and here Newcastle are both locked in a corner and still to crack the code. Their model post-takeover has been to sell at the right time and the right place; when Bruno Guimaraes joined them in that first, manic January window, leading figures at the club speculated in private about getting a good couple of years out of him and then selling, reinvesting and going again, but that moment never happened. Desperation to avoid relegation made them spend. Injury to Callum Wilson made them spend on Isak. Qualifying for the Champions League the first time obliged them to spend again to deepen their playing pool, then a ridiculous rash of injuries mitigated against selling. Nobody touched Guimaraes for a release clause set at £100m and when the time (inevitably) came that they had no choice but to sell, it was no longer on their terms. Having trimmed their squad over the past 12 months, Newcastle have more room for manoeuvre and have been able to do very little about it, Elanga apart. Selling Isak would wipe out PSR issues for the foreseeable future, but it would weaken them in a position which they already needed reinforcements for and which is notoriously difficult and expensive to fill. This at the very moment the Champions League beckons once again. As The Athletic has reported, Newcastle are exploring a move for Benjamin Sesko, the RB Leipzig striker, in the event that Isak goes, with the caveat that this 'would be highly challenging from a financial perspective.' Plus, Isak is a guarantee of Premier League goals. As of yet, Sesko is not. At some point, Newcastle need to master the art of the deal, but nobody wants it to be Isak and nobody wants it to be now. This remains the view of the club, but it is also another thread. Older supporters are still scarred by the loss of Peter Beardsley, Chris Waddle, Paul Gascoigne and, a little later, Andy Carroll. Countless managers, including Rafa Benitez and Howe, have been paranoid about letting players go, particularly when finances have been tight, because they have never been certain about securing replacements. In spring last year, with Dan Ashworth on gardening leave prior to joining Manchester United, Amanda Staveley, then a Newcastle co-owner, stepped in to handle contract negotiations with Joelinton, the Brazil international. Staveley had previously done something similar with Guimaraes, the logjam was broken and both players signed. Since then, Staveley has gone and so, too, has Paul Mitchell, Ashworth's replacement as sporting director. Advertisement Staveley's personal touch has never been replaced – which is more important than might be imagined – and two huge positions of influence at the top of the club are currently vacant, which is sub-optimal to say the least, particularly when you want to demonstrate to your best player that he is absolutely integral and that you mean business. Who would be doing the talking, the haggling, the praising? Those positions will be filled, but relationships will be new again and the new arrivals will have their own ideas and way of working. It returns Howe to the beginning of last season when his dressing room was left unsettled by a disrupted summer and it took all of his power to turn things around. The head coach managed it back then and perhaps he will manage it again, but it does not feel sustainable. As someone close to Howe told The Athletic not too long ago, speaking anonymously to protect relationships: 'No one fully understands apart from Eddie and his staff just how difficult this season has been. Things could have gone very differently.' This notion of progress, what it looks like and how they get there is both fascinating and fraught. It would help if Newcastle could point to something tangible happening with a new stadium, or share a vision for a new training ground and say 'this is the club we are and will be,' but those big decisions have been repeatedly deferred. It would help if there were somebody to do the pointing; why must every appointment take so bloody long? It would help if they could pay big money, but how to do that without demolishing the wage bill? It would help if they sold a big player, except how does it actually help you to help a rival which is already elite? Not for the first time in living memory, albeit in very different circumstances, Newcastle the club is holding back Newcastle the team. Not for the first time, at least some of it is self-inflicted. ()
