The continuing narrative over the past month since John Kennedy was linked with the vacant Hibernian position is the Celtic coach is on an upward trajectory.
Making his way through the coaching ranks at Celtic, John has risen to assistant manager at the club and is Neil Lennon’s right-hand man.
Kennedy has been at the club since he was a young lad trying to make his way as a player in the game. An unfortunate injury during a pointless international friendly curtailed the player’s career before it got properly going. Since then, he’s stayed with Celtic and he’s become a top coach for the club.
Neil Lennon just came back to the club full time this year but he’s already looking to the future and believes John is likely to be the next man in line when he does leave the club.
“He has studied the game very hard and made a huge contribution to the club on the coaching side of things. And I believe he still has a big contribution to make before he either steps in here – in the hot seat eventually – or goes and does his own thing elsewhere.” Lennon told the Sunday Post.
“People might say that, at 36 years old, he is young enough to not yet take the plunge. But if you ask me if he is ready to go into management, I would say, yeah, he could do it now.”
Lennon told how he spoke to John about the Hibernian job when it came up and made it clear he was best to stay at Celtic.
“John came to see me about it (Hibs position), and I gave him short shrift!” said Lennon.
“I told him: ‘Look, I am not surprised by this, but you are just too important to what we are doing here. You know your time will come’. John is ambitious, he has his own ambitions, but Celtic means a lot to him.
