The Arsenal battle Kieran Tierney is unlikely to win as Oleksandr Zinchenko stat comparison shows why Arteta prefers him

Kieran Tierney was billed as Scotland's golden boy in an admittedly lacking generation of footballers. That has mainly rung true for the Celtic academy graduate in a so far glittering career - although he has fallen in a competitive battle recently.

An Unai Emery signing, the Isle of Man-born star moved to the Emirates Stadium in 2019 for a fee of £25million - which remains Celtic's record sale so far, and could be for a while before Jota, Liel Abada or another of their star-studded squad move on. Life in north London also started superbly for the Motherwell-raised starlet, although Emery was canned just six months after Tierney's move down south - and Mikel Arteta has been his boss ever since.

Still, an FA Cup and Community Shield double in the lockdown-plagued summer of 2020 was an example of what was to come in Tierney's Gunners career, and with Arteta steering the ship life looked good on the face of things. Yet with two eighth-placed finishes in Arteta's first year-and-a-half, league performances had to change.

They did to some extent last season with a fifth-placed finish; Tierney was Arsenal's first-choice left-back with Nuno Tavares as his supporting cast member and produced some stunning performances, though that was to change in the summer of 2022 when Arsenal completed the stunning capture of Manchester City star Oleksandr Zinchenko.

It came as quite a surprise. The Ukrainian had played a key part in City's last-gasp Premier League title win in an inverted role that Joao Cancelo had mastered, and alongside the signing of Gabriel Jesus, eyebrows were raised at why City had let two of their highest-profile squad members leave for an English rival.

It seems has paid dividends for Arteta - his side, at time of