EDDY NEEDS A KILLER INSTINCT
Kennedy: Odsonne is up there with Moussa, Virgil and KT but he can go to another level if he turns it on more consistently
JOHN KENNEDY watched Virgil van Dijk stroll it in Scotland. He clocked Moussa Dembele demolishing defences and Kieran Tierney tearing up the flanks.
The trio banked Celtic serious money before going on to star on big stages in England and France. Now stand-in boss John Kennedy reckons Odsonne Edouard is destined to follow the same path. All the French hitman needs is more killer instinct. Edouard – who landed the Player of the Month award for February – is expected to leave Parkhead in the summer, with several clubs on his trail, including Arsenal, Aston Villa, Everton and old boss Brendan Rodgers at Leicester. Kennedy laughed off talk of £15million bagging the France Under-21 star as he has no doubt the striker is on his way to the top if the chilled-out poacher becomes more of an apex predator. He said: “I see how he works. I have seen Virgil working and I have seen Moussa working and all the top guys. He has got as much quality and talent as them. Easily. “The other side of it, psychologically, is that every game he goes out and every training session he takes part in, he shows his levels and improves continuously. “If he does that, he will be exceptional. “He is a top player in terms of the level he has got. “The intelligence he has, the tactical and technical abilities are exceptional. I have spoken to Odsonne and he knows it. “He has got a really good football brain. The thing for him now – and we have spoken about this – is having that killer instinct. “He knows he has got talent, he knows he has got ability. “He is very quiet and can be a bit laidback at times. He has to make sure that come performance time he turns it on and maximises what he has got. “That is what will take him to the top because he has got everything he needs to do that.
“What he has got to develop over time, and with maturity and experience, is that killer instinct.
“The top strikers are all killers – they have that instinct to get the goals, get themselves in there all the time.
“Odsonne can do that, it is about consistency. That comes with time, development and maturing as well.
“When he turns it on, it is easy for everyone to see what he’s got. The more he can do that, it takes you up to the higher level.
“That is what he has got to strive for.”
Kennedy’s immediate target is a strong finish to the season and avoiding the doomsday scenario of a Rangers title party at Parkhead in a fortnight.
Celtic can’t afford a slip-up at Tannadice tomorrow or the league race will be declared.
But the man in the dugout is doing his best to ignore what could happen with Gers.
Kennedy said: “Our motivation is ourselves. We can’t control what goes on elsewhere.
“We’ve just got to prepare well, attack every game.
“We want to be more consistent, score more goals – and then we get the by-product of that.
“Rangers are sitting in a very strong position. If we were sitting in that position ourselves, you know, we’d be very happy with it.
“But we can’t affect that. We’ve just got to deal with the situation we find ourselves in.
“That means going to Tannadice, which is difficult, and trying to win the game.
“Then when the Rangers match comes around, we deal with that. We know there’s a lot of attention around when Rangers might win the league, could it be at Celtic Park and so on.
“But it’s genuinely not in my mind at all at the moment.”
Kennedy will decide today if winger James Forrest is ready to make his comeback.
He said: “James has come through the week really well.
“He is someone we have really missed if you look at his numbers for goals and assists.
“He’s put himself in a position now where he is close. It is just coming to an agreement with him about how he is feeling about it and how we see it in terms of how the squad looks.”
Kennedy is hoping to build on last week’s 1-0 win over Aberdeen in his first match in charge following Neil Lennon’s departure and lay the foundations for next season’s fightback.
He said: “It’s about getting back to what they’re good at – highlevel performances and winning.
“This season, it’s been too inconsistent. There’s been a real variety in performance and results. It has been far too up and down.
“I want to get that to a more even level where it’s consistent. And that gives you a better base to build on.
“You can bog yourself down with the season, feel sorry for yourselves and everything else.
“But life goes on, the club goes on, the team goes on.
“And it’s great that the Scottish Cup is back because that gives us something to go for.
“But ultimately there’s also a bigger picture beyond that – getting back to the levels we know we’re capable of.”
CELTIC handing over the title on their own soil to Rangers would not be a bad thing.
It might actually bring home the seriousness of the situation facing the club right now.
It’s wrong for people to be talking about Rangers winning it at Celtic Park. It was actually won months ago.
I’m going to get accused of being a broken record and going on about the same stuff all of the time.
But seriously, when will someone in power at Parkhead actually give the supporters a heads-up on what is going on? How bad does it have to get? Rangers lifting the Premiership trophy in your own front garden? That serious? It might all be over by tomorrow and there will be a few supporters who would rather get it over with before the March 21 game. But really and truly, it doesn’t matter.
Celtic’s title has been lost since November and still no one seems to have awoken from a slumber.
Neil Lennon leaving post took some sting out of the immediate situation but there’s still a vacuum of information.
I’m not stupid. I’m fully aware Dermot Desmond or Peter Lawwell can’t just invite fans into the stadium for a briefing and list out a load of names and targets to them they are assessing.
But for goodness sake, give your paying customers some sort of information. They want some guidance on what the plan is and if there’s a preferred timescale.
For example, when for a manager? Now? Or is it going to be the end of this season? We all think it’s end of term but no one has actually said so, to my knowledge.
You can’t seriously be telling me that John Kennedy is a contender for the job.
Filling the void after Lennon left makes sense in some respect to keep the players with someone they know but it has to be a stop-gap.
Not even victories in both of the remaining league games against Rangers and lifting the Scottish Cup is going to be enough to get Kennedy the post.
So why isn’t anyone at the club telling us that? Is it because he actually is a contender? Is he in the running?
What’s the situation with the director of football. Is there going to be one?
It is being taken as read that will be the case, with new CEO Dominic McKay not having had hands-on experience of dealing with the football transfer market.
Even Brendan Rodgers was out a couple of weeks ago saying the club need to go down this route. But
CELTIC LEGEND WRITES EXCLUSIVELY FOR YOU EVERY WEEK again, no one from inside Celtic has actually informed the supporters if this is going to be the case.
Deals and negotiations have to be hush-hush. Moves can break down if word gets out regarding matters, I get that. But it’s not as if the fans are looking for candidates to be named.
They’d just like to know what the structure is going to be like because they are looking at a squad that is about to be taken apart and they can’t see how it is going to be reshaped in time for the start of Champions League qualifiers.
They can’t see who is going to be making the decisions, or picking the players.
Is Nick Hammond still going to be running the recruitment side when Lawwell goes?
With the 10 out of the way, Celtic can go back to their market model.
Odsonne Edouard being able to leave on a reduced fee sums up how it went off the rails.
It’s no scandal, it’s the chance that was taken. The club could have got £30million, possibly even from Rodgers himself, last summer but the supporters wouldn’t have accepted the striker being sold with 10 in a row on the line.
Edouard’s price could almost be halved because he is into the last year of his contract but Celtic knew that
Fans about to see reign end for first time in decade still blind are on club’s plans to wrestle it back
would be the case a year ago. Ditto Kristoffer Ajer. Ditto Ryan Christie.
Fans want to know how these decisions are going to be made in the future and within what structure. Will McKay make them? A DoF? Desmond?
The fans are about to see their team’s reign as champions ended for the first time in a decade and are still blind on the club’s plans to wrestle it back.
It could be those inside Parkhead are sitting back and purring at this type of talk. It could be they have their new DoF and manager all signed and sealed.
The pair of them will be wheeled out to the delight of an excited crowd at the stadium and the expectation will surge through the punters that better times are ahead, just as happened on that sunny day in May 2016 when Rodgers arrived.
At that point, those at the helm can sit back and say it was all under control and they weren’t going to pander to demands for answers or to dish out information at such a delicate time.
But maybe they don’t have the first clue who they can get and the silence is because they have nothing to tell. Either way, the fans just want something to happen.
Losing a title at home to Rangers is not the worst part.
Not having any clear idea or plan on how to get it back would be far worse.