“Yeah, that’s far too cheap for my liking,” John Kennedy told the Mainstream Media Conference yesterday when asked about the report in Daily Mail that claimed Celtic were preparing to sell Odsonne Edouard to Leicester City and that the French striker had already made up his mind that he wants a move to be re-united with his former manager Brendan Rodgers.
“When he’s on his game, he’s the top striker in the country, without a shadow of a doubt,” Kennedy added. Edouard was looking for a move last summer and Celtic would have allowed this to happen had the ask-for price been met. It wasn’t so Celtic kept hold of their talisman for another season at least, planning for the historic charge towards a tenth successive title.
However the disappointment at not getting his move affected the player and his head was down during the crucial early stage of the season. Indeed it took to around December before we started to see glimpses of the talisman we knew him to be and by then he’d already had the Covid lay-off caught while on international duty with the French U21s and he even dropped to of the side at the start of January after being named as one of 13 close contacts with the injured Christopher Jullien who came back from the ill-fated and ill-considered trip to Dubai to test positive for the virus.
Now though Edouard’s form has improved – yesterday he was named as the Scottish Premiership’s Player of the Month for February – and his ‘shop window’ form is bound to attract interest from many more potential buyers. Celtic will therefore be in no rush to accept a lowball offer from Brendan Rodgers or anyone else.
“The financial perspective of this club is strong and there are some very clever people here,” Kennedy added. “They know how the business side of football works inside out.
“When you have good players like Odsonne they will always attract attention, but ultimately, we want to make sure everything is right for us as well.
“We’ve put ourselves in a position where we can demand transfer fees. Obviously, that’s down to what we’ve done in terms of either bringing players to the club or bringing them through.
“As you’ll have noticed, transfer fees have increased. The more you are able to develop good players then watch them succeed elsewhere, the more you can ask for. Other clubs realise that they’ll be getting a good product when they buy from us.
“You look at Virgil Van Dijk. When we sold him to Southampton for £13m it was a big fee, but what could he go for now? There have been others we’ve sold since then who have also done well. People know what they’re getting when they buy from us.
“That’s why we get good money for them and why clubs come straight to us now, rather than waiting to see how a player might do once we’ve sold him to Southampton or whoever.
“They’re coming to the party much earlier and we’re now at the level where we don’t have to sell cheaply. It’s about doing what’s best for the club, first and foremost, and then the player, so we’ll see what happens with that.”
Here’s the Celtic TV video of John Kennedy speaking for around 15 minutes to the Mainstream media.
READ THIS…The Inaugural Celtic Fan Media Conference happened today – John Kennedy was mightily impressive
John Kennedy then spoke to around a dozen members of the Celtic Fan Media for just over 45 minutes and as we told you last night the Interim Celtic manager made a great impression, taking time to answer every question from sites like The Celtic Star, Video Celts, Celts Are Here and a selection of podcasts in detail.
Collectively the Celtic Fam Media – which is seems has been feared by the club – were professional, asked a variety of interesting questions and John Kennedy appeared to enjoy talking about football, tactics, everything Celtic related to a bunch of supporters.
Hopefully the video will be released today by the club. Meanwhile you can listen to it via the Cynics, using the link below.
🎙️ The Press Gang – John Kennedy and David Turnbull
📝 Unedited audio from today’s Press Conference featuring Kennedy and Turnbull.@Ginty1888 was in attendance and asked each a question:
🗣Quality of chances
🗣Footballing philosophyListen ⬇️https://t.co/RBXAgmI4GZ
— The Cynic (@90MinuteCynic) March 5, 2021
🎧🍀
NEW EPISODE
Join us as we take part in the first ever Celtic fan media conference which gave us the chance to put our questions to David Turnbull and John Kennedy
Apple – https://t.co/dIYYCMH7Qp
Spotify – https://t.co/JIzqy1TKk5 pic.twitter.com/b2xbtzLQh1
— 4 Tims and a Podcast (@PodTims) March 6, 2021
This is a brilliant insight on coaching by John Kennedy from today's fan media event. Well worth watching if you want an idea on his footballing philosophy.
(Question by @celticrumours )
"They can do things that we can't coach"
Sponsored by @ParadisePods pic.twitter.com/fRnqK18MB1
— The Celtic Exchange Podcast 🎙 (@CeltExchange) March 5, 2021
