Loan bhoy retains his Champions League dream

Johnny Kenny is taking inspiration from Liam Scales as he looks for a way back to Celtic.

As a prolific teenage striker Kenny joined Celtic in January 2022 from Sligo Rovers and made a couple of appearances in the Lowland League.

Kenny did play for the first team during the 2022 pre-season tour of Austria but moved on loan to Queens Park where he failed to make much of an impact.

In January he returned to the League of Ireland, on loan at Shamrock Rovers which is the route that Scales took two years ago with a season at Aberdeen required before he found his current status at Celtic.

Reflecting on how Scales has developed this season, Kenny told the Irish Examiner:

It’s a real appetite, seeing a player coming from Shamrock Rovers, where I am now, and in two years he’s playing in the Champions League for Celtic. It’s a dream.

I brought Rory Gaffney and Lee Grace to the game with me. We were all jealous of him standing there when the Champions League music came on. It’s the biggest appetiser I have ever had.

He (Rovers’ manager Stephen Bradley) wants to keep me and reckons that’s best for my development, so we’ll just see what Celtic think.

I think I want to go back myself, get as fit as possible, get ready, get in training and hopefully impress the new manager. When I was there it was Ange (Postecoglou), and Brendan (Rodgers) is there now so I just want to get in and try to impress him.

Kenny has scored four goals for Shamrock Rovers after starting 14 LOI matches and coming off the bench 13 times.

The LOI season runs through until the first week in November, after that Celtic will have to decide whether to put Kenny on loan to a UK club or to return him to Ireland for next season which starts in February.