Having taken charge of Celtic on an interim basis following the departure of Neil Lennon this week, John Kennedy said his primary concerns are tomorrow’s match against Aberdeen and helping the players through a difficult time at the club.

Speaking at Lennoxtown today (Friday), Kennedy underlined Neil Lennon’s enduring commitment to Celtic despite some unfortunate results this season, and stressed his own disappointment in seeing the Irishman leave.

“It’s always disappointing when someone loses their job, especially when it’s someone you've worked with closely,” said John Kennedy. “What Neil did is give everything he could to the cause. He had massive success as a player and manager, unfortunately it’s not worked out how we’d have wanted to this season, but he recognises that himself.

“He was so committed to turning things around, to try and get on a run, it felt like every time we got a run of results we’d have a setback.

“The bar is very high here at Celtic and if you fail to reach that, there’s always a possibility you could be out of a job. It’s disappointing for everyone but he was man enough to acknowledge that and make that call.”

‘I want to strip us back to what makes us a good team, to the process, what makes good and what has made it us successful and make the players realise that.’

From here, Kennedy said he plans to apply minor tweaks in order to help build the players’ confidence – now with the help of Stephen McManus who has stepped up from the club's Reserves setup to help with first-team duties.

John Kennedy added: “It’s difficult to make drastic changes. Results haven’t always been forthcoming this season. There have been areas of the game which have been fine, but there have been areas we need to brush up on. I’ve tried to take the emotion and stress out of the situation.

“I want to strip us back to what makes us a good team, to the process, what makes us good and what has made us successful, and make the players realise that. It’s as much about psychology this week, so we’ve had to try and keep a lid on that, keep the love and confidence around the place.

‘I just want to bring a bit of clarity and help the players put their full belief in themselves. I’ve got a job to do, and the players have to have that respect for themselves and the club.’

“This has never been about me. I’ve been here a long time, I’ve always applied myself and for me personally, I’ve no interest in looking beyond this period of time in terms of what it means to me. It doesn’t matter to me. I want to guide them through this period, and maximise what’s left of the season.

“I just want to bring a bit of clarity to things at the minute and help the players put their full belief in themselves. I’ve got a job to do, and the players have to have that respect for themselves and the club. When they do that, they’re a good team. We’ve not seen that enough this season, but we know it’s in there.

“We’re a team who in the main will dominate possession and it’s about fine tuning within that, in terms of what we do with that possession. And then it’s about how we limit Aberdeen in forward areas. They can be very aggressive in the box and at set-plays. We did that well for large periods of the last game, we created decent chances until the last 10-15 minutes.

“We need to be aggressive at the top end, and also with the ball. We want to control the game when we have the ball. For periods of the season, we haven’t done that well enough. We just need to have better play from the back and at the top end be a little more clinical, and trust each other in the team.”

John Kennedy: We want to remind players of their ability