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Kennedy defends French striker and insists Collum wrong to deny penalty
JOHN KENNEDY last night leapt to the defence of Odsonne edouard, insisting Celtic’s star striker is no diver.
The French Under-21 international was booked for simulation when he went down looking for a penalty after a sliding challenge from Rangers left-back Borna Barisic.
The flashpoint in yesterday’s 1-1 draw came four minutes after Moi elyounoussi headed the Parkhead side into the lead.
And Kennedy insists it made no sense for edouard to go down voluntarily when he had a clear chance to double Celtic’s lead.
disappointed with the failure to claim all three points after Rangers keeper Allan McGregor foiled his side yet again, the interim boss said: ‘I spoke to Odsonne.
‘In terms of that contact, if you get any sort of contact in the box when a player comes flying at you at that speed...
‘If you slow it down you can say: “Oh, I’m not really sure much was there”. If you play it full speed, the player comes recklessly in, knocks you off balance and just touches you enough to go over. That is what has happened there. He knocked him over.
‘If he doesn’t go over, he has got the ball, he scores a goal. So there is no need for him to go down.
‘He is a goalscorer, he wants to score as many goals as possible. He is not that type of player.
‘We feel aggrieved we didn’t get a penalty kick, but we have got to accept that and look at the bigger picture of the performance, which was good.’
Asked if he spoke to referee Willie
Collum after the game, Kennedy said: ‘I have not had a chance. Again, I have been in with the players and then have come straight out here. ‘It is disappointing. In games like this, these games are massive, they are really important. ‘Willie will have his opinion on it, other people might think differently, but we are sure it was a penalty.’ As in a 1-0 defeat to Rangers at Ibrox in January, Celtic had more possession and chances — an inspired man-of-the-match display from McGregor restricting them to one point from six. ‘Allan McGregor has come up with a couple of good saves, we had opportunities we didn’t quite capitalise on,’ said Kennedy. ‘Rangers had the goal and a couple of set-plays that caused a bit of messiness in the box probably more than anything else, bodies flying about. ‘Other than that they didn’t have too much more. ‘We controlled them, we had good possession, we created good opportunities. ‘We had a couple of crosses across goal where we could have had better bodies arriving in there to capitalise on. ‘Performance-wise, I think we showed the level we are at — that we are more than capable of coming and competing and being the better team. ‘But you have got to then do the other side of it, which is get the results. ‘It is disappointing, but I am not going to let that get us down because I want the players to reflect on the performance, the attitude they had throughout the game, the control they had in the game. ‘I was disappointed with the goal we conceded, but our reaction to that was really good. We got ourselves back in the game, we controlled the ball again and we weren’t too nervy. ‘We just built our way back into the match and started creating chances again. As time progresses, we will fine tune the stuff that gets us more clinical at the top end and eradicates us losing goals. ‘As a general base, I am very happy with the way we played. There are little bits we need to fix and that will be good for us going forward.’