John Kennedy gave a good press conference yesterday, confirming for me again that he talks a good game even if he’s not first rate manager material.
When he was asked about the guard of honour he dealt with it brilliantly, slapping back at the Ibrox club and making it clear that we might have been more predisposed towards this had they paid us the compliment back in 2019.
It’s a point this blog has hammered out over the last few weeks, as is the point he made about this being a decision of the players.
As I said earlier, the guard of honour is a mark of respect and one with a proud history and not just in football. It’s a professional courtesy. They didn’t believe we were entitled to that courtesy.
Some of the players who were not given that respect two years ago were being asked to give it to the same club in the here and now?
It was never going to happen.
Kennedy was excellent when the question came up.
Nor did he let the hacks off the hook when they got onto the subject of Ibrox’s potential “invincible”.
He hit the right notes and made sure that the key point – that we have set a new standard for what that means – was put on the record. He could have emphasised that more forcefully, but actually I’m glad he didn’t.
It was good to see him put the point across at all … but i was impressed with how he did it.
It would have been easy to have hand-waived that question. Kennedy took it on.
This guy has some ice in his veins when it comes to dealing with the press.
Lennon would have been too aggressive or casually dismissive of these things and that would have been the story; Kennedy comes across like a guy who is just stating the bald facts, and it has credibility.
I like Kennedy’s handling of these things, and on this one he got everything bang on, from the message to the tone in which he put it across. The media knows what we think of their ridiculous “invincible” nonsense and so does the Ibrox club.
For all this talk of theirs, they know they are a ways from even being able to claim that on the basis of their league form.
For the rest of it, they are nowhere.
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