If I was in John Kennedy’s shoes today, I think I’d be spending some time updating my CV, composing a covering letter and looking up the post code for Fir Park.
Celtic’s assistant manager it appears is well thought of behind the scenes at Celtic Park. It may even be had this season gone according to plan –and I use that term very loosely indeed – that Kennedy would have been earmarked to replace Neil Lennon, a man you would have expected would have been heading into the sunset as a Ten-in-a Row legend.
Kennedy would have been ideal for a reset at Celtic, one where the generation of projects bubbling under the surface would have been tutored by someone with a reputation as a coach but untried as a manager. A youthful manager of fledgling players with little ego to mould into a fresh modern and sustainable Celtic vision for the future.
Ten-in-a-Row would have afforded Kennedy enough cover for the club to announce his appointment as a long-term vision, but one with a few bumps in the road as expensive signing were bypassed for those on the periphery and the rearing of our own. On the back of such success a long-term vision may have been accepted by the Celtic support as the sort of structure and plan worth experimenting with. Now Kennedy’s landscape is bleak.
Rightly or wrongly Celtic’s number two is seen as Peter Lawwell’s man, and whatever way you look at it Peter Lawwell’s reputation at Celtic is damaged beyond repair. Indeed, any changing of the guard when it comes to managerial appointments that has any involvement of Celtic’s CEO will be tarnished by association. For Kennedy that is unfortunate.
Indeed, for any appointment to the Celtic manager’s position you’d question the credibility of the applicant if he took the job on under the heavy constraints of Lawwell’s ever watchful and forever interfering watch. You’d expect any manager to do their due diligence and any worth their salt will not receive favourable feedback from prior managers or those who applied for the post previously and had their CV’s left in a drawer unopened.
If Kennedy was appointed manager now, he’d simply be seen as a puppet on Peter Lawwell’s string. A pawn in an 18-year vanity project where an entire organisation is micromanaged to the nth degree. There would be no honeymoon period in the eyes of the support and Kennedy would be marked as a residual effect of the last manager’s failings, guilty by association and seen simply as a man Lawwell could mould to his ways like putty in the hand.
If John Kennedy has any real belief that he could become a Celtic manager he needs to do now what he possibly should have done, with the benefit of hindsight, when Jack Ross eventually got the Hibs job. He should fly the nest. He was Hibs first choice and now the man in that current role would be a favourite for the Celtic role as and when Neil Lennon’s is relieved of his duties. I’m sure in his moments of reflection that scenario and that sliding doors moment may now be something Kennedy regrets.
Yet Stephen Robinson’s surprise resignation from Motherwell could well be the perfect opportunity to cut the Celtic apron strings and allow Kennedy to strike out on an independent road.
Time spent at Motherwell could see Kennedy build a reputation as his own man. Success in the role could mean his current reputation as a member of the coaching team that lost the league by the time the New Year bells had only just ceased chiming, could be remedied. A period of being a main man at a Premiership club could be the making of John Kennedy. Such a move may allow a reputation to not only be repaired but also enhanced. It’s a gamble of course but it is one that at least gives John Kennedy a chance to realign his reputation and have some hope of the job he clearly covets, at present he has little to no chance of being accepted in the role.
As a manager at Motherwell John Kennedy could well prove himself worthy of a chance down the line as a Celtic manager. Time where a failing CEO, one he is intrinsically linked with, may well be moved on and with it the chain of association broken.
John Kennedy may well have been persuaded to stay when Hibs came calling with promises that can no longer be honoured. The current vacancy at Motherwell may well be one that has come at a timely moment in Kennedy’s career. If I was in his shoes, I’d be looking out the envelope and stamps.
Niall J
John Kennedy is one of the driving factors behind celtic’s decline, he’s a job-for-life guy with no proven talent, who has lucked out.
Time and time again – you only need to look to Saturday – celfic are defensively exposed. No players on the post, an arrogance and stubborn refusal to do so. A red card caused by a midfielder having to play CB, obvious to everyone but Lennon and Kennedy. There is no progress, no coaching is evident, seemingly no ability to identify a problem and work to a solution. He is clueless on the bench, shoulders hunched.
We played Bitton as a makeshift CB for the 3rd year running, caught by surprise at our lack of options, again. A LB and CB on loan, signed to plug gaps that remained after a string of failed alternatives.
Kennedy is a huge part of the problem at celtic.
The sooner he leaves the better.