Kennedy is confident Bhoys can cope with the frenzy and fend off threat from Pittodrie

COME on feel the noise — just don’t expect everyone at Celtic to join in the shouting. Quietly seething over their weekend loss at Pittodrie, the champions remain confident of silencing all challengers before this campaign is out.

‘There’s a bit of a frenzy around because Aberdeen are top of the table,’ notes John Kennedy, the Celtic coach picking up on the nationwide excitement over the potential emergence of a genuine c hal l e nge to t he perennial title winners.

‘People are asking: “Are they title contenders? Are they not?”. It’s something new for everybody and everybody loves that.

‘But when Celtic are on top, it’s all very quiet. It’s very early in the season. There’s still a long, long way to go and we’re fully confident that, come the last day, we’ll be lifting the league trophy.

‘It’s always a serious challenge, especially in this position now. Aberdeen have had a great start. They pushed us last season and I think they’ve improved since then.

‘It’s something that we’re fully ready for. It was a poor result at the weekend but there are a lot of games to play. Come the end of the season, that’s when we’ll see where everyone is.’

If a note of defiance from the title holders is expected, so perhaps is the admission from Kennedy that the players and coaching staff were left furious by their inability to get a result in the north east.

Well aware that this week’s Europa League j aunt to play Ajax in Amsterdam provides an instant opportunity for redemption, Kennedy said: ‘I think the anger is at ourselves. We’ve disappointed ourselves with the performance, with the mistakes we’ve made and with not creating enough opportunities.

‘I think we have to use that anger as a positive. We use it to motivate ourselves for Thursday’s game. This is a great platform, the kind of game we all want to be involved in. There’s no better game to come around for us than a big European tie against Ajax.

‘Everybody is bitterly disappointed. There’s no getting away from that. We’ve reflected on what we thought we didn’t do well, what we can do better, and it’s important we take that into the match on Thursday.’

As a former central defender of enormous grace and intelligence, until a devastating knee injury ended his playing career, it must seriously annoy Kennedy (right) to be involved in a team conceding so many goals f rom balls into the box at the moment.

‘ I think we’ve made some costly errors,’ he said. ‘We all know that and we all take responsibility for that.

‘ But it’ s not a case of us pointing fingers at individuals. Team performances are what win you games. That applies defensively, everyone defending as a unit, as much as it does to creating chances at the other end. But, overall, the defending has not been great.’

Batting aside renewed criticism of the zonal marking system, Kennedy added: ‘It’s the same thing that happens all the time. The debate kicks off whenever the zonal marking system concedes a goal.

‘We’ve scored plenty against other teams that use man-to-man. We see it as a positive for us when other teams set up man-to-man against us. We find that we get more joy from it.

‘ In the past, the system has worked. We’ve changed one or two little things but it’s not as tight as we would want it. We’ve conceded a goal but we’ll make sure we fix it.’

Kennedy hinted that new central defender Jozo Simunovic could be thrown into the fray in the Amsterdam Arena, and added: ‘He’s fit. He’s come in and trained well.

‘The weekend was too early for him after having very little time with the group. But he’s training well and he’ll certainly travel with the group for Thursday.’

Backing the players to rise to the occasion and cope with the pressure of being potentially five points off the early domestic pace by the time they return f rom the Netherlands, Kennedy said: ‘It takes a really strong mentality. No matter what the game is and what the competition is, you’re expected to win games here.

‘That’s the joy of being at Celtic. That’s the nature of the beast and this is what makes top players.

‘If you can come here and you can play under that immense pressure every week and shine, then you know that you’re a top player. ‘One thing we look for in players is making sure they have the right mentality because there is a pressure and a demand there from the fans and everyone surrounding it to win matches.

‘ But t hat’s a motivation. You shouldn’ t shy away from that. They have to go out and deliver in every match.’

“It’s very early. We’re confident we’ll be lifting the league title”