How Much is Kieran Tierney Worth?

One of the biggest unknowns this summer is how much Arsenal will get for their out of favor left back.

I find trying value soccer (football) players fascinating.

It is a good use of the economics I learned in school (surplus value, auction theory) mixed in with a good amount of irrational actions and emotions. I think that in general that a player’s worth tracks fairly well to the surplus value that they provide above and beyond the contract, with some projection of what the buying teams expect the player to produce over the next contract.

There are obviously situations where this breaks down and doesn’t describe what is happening but those are also the exceptions that make things fun and interesting.

That brings me to the main focus today, trying to think about what Kieran Tierney is worth on the transfer market.

If you search his name on TransferMarkt you get €25m, when I did a very unscientific poll of my followers the most popular range was £35-£45m, but with £25-£35 a pretty strong second place.

When Adam and I did the exit interview for him, I pegged the minimum price at £25m with Adam at £28m.

I think those are pretty fair but I wanted to really go through the numbers and get a sense of what the actual comparables would be.

His current season makes things tough, he hasn’t played much and when he has, it hasn’t been in a style that seems well suited to his game.

On my fullback rating system, he comes out looking like a slightly below average Premier League fullback (again it could be the system/role) ranking as the 34th-best attacking fullback in the Premier League.