1st November 2026; Falkirk Stadium, Falkirk, Scotland; Scottish Premiership Football, Falkirk versus Celtic;
Martin O’Neill name-checked Liam Kennedy at his media conference ahead of facing Besiktas in the Europa League.
Following his Monday night visit to Greenock the Celtic boss clocked up the mileage as he visited Dingwall to watch the Celtic B team against Ross County in the KDM Trophy.
A long awaited Celtic debut for Joel van den Berg was the main attraction plus rare starting appearances for Shim Mheuka and Landon Emenalo.
Midfielder Kennedy was involved with the Celtic first team in pre-season matches and is the name regularly pushed as a potential first team player.
On August 29 Kennedy was on the bench for the Celtic first team at home to Falkirk.
Five days later he joined East Kilbride on loan as part of the Co-Operation deal with the League One side.
The plan was to give the midfielder playing time at a higher level to accelerate his development.
CRITICAL TIME FOR LIAM KENNEDY
So far, two months later Kennedy has played just 38 minutes for East Kilbride.
Similar to Rhys Dargie as they sit on the bench each Saturday watching League One football as valuable playing time is lost.
Overall Co-Operation Deals are working well for clubs, even the Ibrox club have worked it out with their agreement with Alloa.
However someone at Celtic thought that sending Kennedy and Dargie to East Kilbride would be of benefit.
East Kilbride ruthlessly sign players as they chase their third successive promotion. In 12 SPFL matches so far this season 21 different players have started.
East Kilbride isn’t the environment for 17-year-old Celtic players to get game time to develop their careers.
Discussing Dingwall on Tuesday night O’Neill said:
But I wanted to see the players, primarily the players. First of all, there’s a couple of young lads who are trying to come through, like young Liam Kennedy, lads like that there who I think have a chance.
They’re young and also we had Joel van den Berg playing a game after injury and the two young lads from Chelsea who haven’t played that much football even since summer time.
Kennedy was on the bench against Benfica and Celta Vigo and will probably be a substitute tonight against Besiktas.
He has been playing for Celtic B in the Lowland League and also in the KDM Trophy.
Clearly an opportunity has been lost this season for Kennedy with East Kilbride.
Alongside the failing Recruitment Department the development of first team players from the Academy has ground to a halt.
With £3.5m spent on van den Berg the chances are that Kennedy’s career is heading in the same direction as so many others over the last decade.
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