Now he is living on his own, learning how to cook and, in his own words, eating chocolate and playing video games. “People say, ‘what’s the city like?’ I have no idea. I’ve never been in. I train, I work hard, I go home and recover and train the next day. It is just a simple life and I put everything into football.”
He has been helped by club captain Granit Xhaka and also by Hector Bellerin, with whom he has forged a close bond during their time together in the treatment room at the start of the season.
“Everybody has helped me as soon as I have come in,” he said. “I think they realise I’m a young boy moving away from home, so everybody has helped me. Granit has been great for me as the captain coming in.”
The comparisons with Liverpool’s Andy Robertson, arguably the finest left-back in the world and a Scotland team-mate, are inevitable. Tierney chooses to steer clear of those, though, instead preferring to tuck in his shirt and get down to work.
“I don’t compare myself to anybody else,” he said. “I work 100 per cent every day. If it is good enough, it is good enough. If not, it’s not for a lack of trying.”
