John Kennedy said concentrating on eradicating the basic errors that have troubled Celtic this season will help breed confidence throughout the team and ensure they finish the campaign strongly.

The Celtic interim manager will oversee the team for the first time this Saturday (February 27) when the champions face Aberdeen at Celtic Park in the Premiership.

John Kennedy led his first training session as interim manager on Wednesday, and said he and the players immediately got to work on addressing the issues that have cost them points this season.

“Too many times this season we’ve fallen short of what’s expected and a lot of that comes down to doing the basic things well and doing them consistently,” he said. “There are small things we’ve discussed already and things we’ve looked at in training.

“This year, there’s been a lack of consistency in terms of not being clinical enough at the top end. We’ve sometimes forced things too quickly and not had good enough quality attacks and secondly, we’ve given away too many cheap goals. We’ve conceded too many goals from set-plays. It’s about facing up to the honesty of that.

'In the main, controlling the games has been good but it’s about dealing with what comes our way in our own box and making sure we’re more clinical at the top end. Hopefully, that breeds more confidence from the players and build on that.'

Having worked with the first-team since 2014, John Kennedy knows the squad well, and the 37-year-old is confident the bond he has with the players will be conducive to success throughout the remainder of the season.

“I have a great relationship with them all,” he said. “They know I’m very professional and very demanding of them on the training pitch. Away from that, I can be quite relaxed and not have a problem sitting discussing things with them.

“I said to the players that I know they’re all disappointed but it’s about doing the right thing for the club now. Everybody has to fully commit to this last part of the season, everyone parks their egos and gets on board in terms of putting all your efforts into making sure we finish strongly. All we can do is affect what we do on the training pitch and take that into games as much as we possibly can and get results.

“Everyone is disappointed about that but there’s a game on Saturday and the rest of the season to go out and attack. It’s a case of drawing a line under it. We all had a great relationship with Neil, but professionally we have to make sure we go out and deliver on Saturday.”

John Kennedy: We need to get back to basics