26-year-old likely to return to Arsenal following development over £20m transfer fee

Kieran Tierney could reportedly be set to return to Arsenal this summer as Real Sociedad seem to be highly unlikely to pay the £20million required to sign the left-back permanently.

The Scotland international has done well since moving to Sociedad from Arsenal last summer, but it looks like it won’t be easy to get a permanent deal done for the 26-year-old.

According to Mundo Deportivo, as cited and translated by Sport Witness, Tierney’s asking price for a permanent move would likely be as high as £20m, and that’s not an amount Sociedad would be willing to pay.

The La Liga club are not well known for spending vast sums of money, so this seems to be a bit beyond them, raising doubts over Tierney’s long-term future.

For the time being, the former Celtic defender will probably return to the Emirates Stadium in the summer, but one imagines another loan or a permanent move elsewhere is surely the most likely next step after that.

Tierney transfer: Permanent exit surely on the cards for Arsenal left-back this summer

Tierney has had some good moments in an Arsenal shirt, but there’s now so much competition for a place in the team that it seems like an uphill struggle for him to get into Mikel Arteta’s first XI any time soon.

Then again, in a surprise twist, it could also be that Oleksandr Zinchenko’s future is in some doubt this summer, as per recent reports.

Football Transfers have claimed that the Ukraine international could leave for the right price this summer, so perhaps that means there could be a role for Tierney after all.

At the same time, however, it seems a bit surprising that a recent signing like Zinchenko, whose arrival pushed Tierney down the pecking order in the first place, could now be offloaded and Tierney pushed back up in the manager’s plans.