John Kennedy shares ‘honest’ thoughts on how the Celtic players feel ahead of Ibrox Glasgow Derby

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John Kennedy has shared how the Celtic dressing room is really feeling ahead of the big Ibrox Glasgow Derby game against Rangers next week.

Yesterday’s win over Livingston has placed Celtic back on top of the Scottish Premiership, albeit Rangers have a game in hand, but if Brendan Rodgers‘ side takes three points away from Ibrox then Celtic will be firmly in the driving seat ahead of the top six split.

With the full focus now on next Sunday, Celtic Assistant Manager, John Kennedy, has shared just how his players are feeling ahead of the trip to Rangers and how the team plans to prepare for the top-of-the-table clash.

Rangers have a tricky away trip at Dundee on the 10th of April and should they fail to win that then the title race will have taken another big twist if Celtic can pull off an Ibrox win as well.

Celtic the ‘calmest place’ in Scotland

The Hoops’ second in command has admitted that whilst his players remain focused on training, there is not a hint of nerves amongst the Celtic players yet.

Kennedy said [Scottish Football Podcast], “To be honest, and I’m not just saying this, but it’s probably the calmest place in Scotland inside our training ground.

“We know it’s about the sessions we do and the preparation we put in.

“And the reality is that we just have to take each day as it comes and make sure we prepare properly.

“We know when we are fully prepared and we are at like we have been the last little while then we know we are in good spirits and go and attack the game as we always do.

“But the reality is if you caught up in it too early in the week you allow the emotion to set in too early it’s also draining.

“So for us, it’s about keeping calm, just can control what we can control which is the training and when next weekend comes we will deal with that.”

Celtic have a number of their top players returning from injury. Yesterday saw Reo Hatate return for the first time since December since he was injured on international duty with Japan.

We also saw Cameron Carter-Vickers get a start as he builds up his fitness ahead of the Ibrox game and Matt O’Riley and Kyogo Furuhashi were also looking sharp in the 3-0 win over Livingston.

Yesterday’s victory sets the team up well for Sunday and hopefully, the confidence remains high amongst the players as Brendan Rodgers looks to pick up his second Ibrox win of the season.