Celtic interim boss John Kennedy's class retort to nonsensical Dave King remarks

By David Walton

March 21, 2021

Celtic interim manager John Kennedy has shown some pre-Rangers fight after hitting out at Dave King for his absolutely baseless “arrogant” comments.

Former Ibrox chairman King recently called out Celtic and stated that they didn’t invest this season out of sheer arrogance. He would go on to tell STV that the club knew Rangers were catching up but still decided not to push on as we felt we had one more year at the top in us.

As we know, Celtic would lose the league in embarrassing fashion this season. However, to say that came via a lack of investment is both baseless and sheer wrong.

And Kennedy himself clearly couldn’t be bothered with it. He’s offered his own retort to King, who seemed to appear out of nowhere now that his club has finally won something.

As quoted by the Daily Record, the temporary Hoops boss said: “It’s unfair to say we were arrogant. He obviously doesn’t know what’s going on over here.

“We know what we do and we did invest and the club supported the team. He deals with his own club. We never show any arrogance as a club – we’re humble and try and do the right thing for us as a club.

“We don’t concern ourselves with too many other clubs or anyone else for that matter, we just focus on how we make ourselves better, how we improve things. It doesn’t always go to plan and that’s what has happened this season. Not everything is perfect. We’ve got to accept where we’re at, but it certainly wasn’t down to complacency at the start of the season.”

Celtic’s summer transfer outlay tells it’s own story; Dave King appears to have forgotten it

We can accuse the club for many things this season. Not acting quickly enough to dismiss Neil Lennon. Not listening to the supporters’ demand for change. Turning fan anger into fan apathy. All of this can be aimed at the board.

What can’t be, however, is this idea that Celtic didn’t invest in the campaign ahead. Sure, in the bigger picture it has merit. You can argue for days as to whether appointing Lennon shows a lack of big-time investment in its own right.

But Celtic spent more last summer than they have done in years. Look at the reported figures for Lennon’s signings, for example:

Dave King has been talking nonsense about Celtic yet again (Photo by Steve Welsh/Getty Images)

Vasilis Barkas – £4.5m [Scottish Sun]. Albian Ajeti – £4.5m [BBC]. Shane Duffy – £2m [Sky Sports]. David Turnbull – £3.25m [BBC].

That’s £14.25m worth of investment alone. That’s not even including potential add-ons should the players meet certain criteria. All of this whilst ensuring that we never allowed any of our top stars to depart.

King is shown up by these facts alone, but it’s great to see Kennedy not just sitting there and taking it. He’s entitled to bite back, and bite back he did. No doubt we won’t hear the former Rangers chairman’s response of course. He’ll be away back in hiding for now.

In other news, Davie Provan can’t believe one major contract decision at Celtic.