Kieran Tierney: Celtic have work to do in Premiership title race

Celtic defender Kieran Tierney admits they have work to do in the Premiership title race – and quickly.

But Tierney is adamant they will get things right as they adapt to their third manager of the season.

Wilfried Nancy suffered a 2-1 home defeat to Hearts in his first game as Celtic manager on Sunday, which saw his side fall three points adrift of the league leaders with a game in hand.

Tierney, who netted Celtic’s goal – deep in stoppage-time – said: “We respect every opponent. They’re up there because they deserve to be up there. We’ve got work to do and we need to do it quick.

“(We will get it right) 100 per cent, because we need to.

“We’re in a title race, we’ve got a cup final, we’ve got Europa League we want to qualify through. So there’s no option.

“We need to get it right and we’ll be working and doing everything we can to do that.”

Celtic dominated possession in the first half but Daizen Maeda could not make the most of their only two clear-cut chances, before Claudio Braga netted two minutes before the interval.

Oisin McEntee headed the second for Hearts and Celtic struggled to get back into the game.

Much was made of Nancy’s new formation, which saw Tierney playing in a back three. Wide players Yang Hyun-jun and Sebastian Tounekti were handed more defensive duties and Celtic had to adapt to a four-man ‘box midfield’.

Nancy has come under scrutiny for poring over counters on a tactics board in the dugout and for claiming in a Sky Sports post-match interview that: “I’m not about losing or winning, I’m about having a good performance.”

But Tierney believes too much is being made about the formation.

The 28-year-old said: “The thing that let us down in the first half was we never scored when we were on top. Because I think we had them on the back foot. We had chances, we pressed the game well and we just never scored.

“I don’t think we were as good in the second half, but we still had chances.

“Formation is one thing, but the way you build up in a back four, you can build up with three defenders, full-back pushing in and different things.

“So I wouldn’t focus so much on the formation, but I think we dealt well with it in the first half. I think we got good chances out of it, I think we were passing the ball well.

“But it’s easy to say that, you need to win these games and we never won, so it’s not good enough.”

Tierney is excited about the manager’s style and believes it will reap rewards.

“I like it a lot, because I like building up in the three and I’ve played the left centre-back role with Celtic, Arsenal and Scotland, so it’s a position I’m used to,” he said.

“His ideas are good about creating overloads, finding the free man.

“It’s only been a couple of days, so the manager’s just got a few messages across. It’ll be impossible to get every single detail across in a few days.

“I don’t think we’re far away from it.”