Celtic coach John Kennedy confident of title
Wednesday 16 September 2015 10:43, UK
First-team coach John Kennedy is confident Celtic remain the team to beat in the Scottish Premiership and, come next May, it will be the reigning champions who are holding aloft the trophy for a fifth straight season.
Saturday's 2-1 defeat by Aberdeen leaves the Hoops two points adrift of the Dons, who also have one game in hand.
Derek McInnes's table-toppers are yet to drop a single point in six matches but Kennedy says he has no doubts that Celtic will be title-winners again this season.
And he told Glasgow's Evening Times: "There's a bit of frenzy around because Aberdeen are top of the table. People are asking 'are they title contenders? Are they not?'
"It's something new and everybody loves that but when Celtic's 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 title.
"We'll ask the players to use their previous performance, and what's going on around about them, and say 'look guys, go and show everybody what it's all about.'
"We've got a group of boys with a good bit of experience in there, and the players that have come in have shown a great attitude.
"When we combine that and everything clicks we'll be a very good team.
"Aberdeen have had a great start, they pushed us last season and I think they've improved since then, so it's going to be a challenge.
"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 who is where."
Kennedy also hopes that the players will bounce back on Thursday in Amsterdam where Celtic open their Europa League account against Ajax.
He told the newspaper: "I think we have to use that anger (from Saturday's defeat) as a positive.
"We use it to motivate ourselves going into Thursday's game.
"This is a great platform, the kind of game we all want to be involved in and play in. There's no better game to come around for us than a big European tie against Ajax."
