I'm surprised and also disappointed in some of the reactions I've seen in regards to the remaining 8 games. "Don't care" and "not interested" seems to be some common responses.
Nonesense is my response to that. I understand the reactions and they probably come from a bitter sweet place now that Lennon has finally gone. Too little too late!! Agreed. However if we don't care or are not interested we'd have been as well keeping Lennon then.
I've been calling for Kennedy to be given temporary charge for a while now. Ever since I realised that the board weren't going to give us a new Manager prior to the summer. I did comment to a worried few that Lennon would not be here next year. It was becoming very clear there was going to be a change in the summer. Hence why Lennon was kept on for so long. Once I realised we wouldn't get a new permanent Manager till the summer I was all for giving John Kennedy the reigns until the end of the season. We are on a nosedive and the further we drop the harder the recovery is going to be. Just slowing the drop would be beneficial. Some people have been saying why now. Worse has happened than Ross County. If Lennon was gone after the St Mirren game people would say what's the point now. They could have said that on numerous occasions this season but trust me it could have got far worse. Do you remember thinking in October, November or December (when fans were chasing the team bus) that things could never get worse. Well they did and a whole lot worse. Hopefully the club have sat John Kennedy down and demanded 8 wins out of 8 and some pride back to the club. And good performances with style and effort to give something back to the fans. Have a bit of pride. If Rangers win the league unbeaten, do the whitewash over us and Hibs pip us to 2nd (and we have no CL qualification hopes to offer any interested Manager applicants) will we look back and say yeah I still stand by my comment John Kennedy's 8 games were meaningless? Hibs are 12pts behind us with a game in hand. 2 defeats to Rangers for us and Hibs winning their game would make them 3 pts behind us with a game at Easter Road still to come. Has John Kennedy been complicit in this year's failings and let down Lennon ? Or has John Kennedy been unfairly branded poor and had no opportunity to positively change anything due to Lennon's stubbornness? Lawell couldn't convince Lennon to say sorry for Dubai so if Lawell can't influence Lennon I doubt Kennedy could. For one thing it would be interesting to see how John Kennedy performs in these games. At the end of the 8 games we might then be better informed on that opinion whether Kennedy was complicit in the failure or another victim. What if, just what if, he is this wonderful coach with great potential we have heard so much of? What if he goes on to have a great career as a future Manager with Hibs or Motherwell ? If he is this potential future Manager then his time through adversary this year will definitely have been a big learning curve for him. What if these 8 games show that potential and earn him a Manager role elsewhere where he develops into a top class Manager and then some time in the future comes back to us ? Will those 8 games be meaningless then? What if some of the players potentially leaving play well and either decide to stay or get increased valuation ? Will those 8 games be meaningless then ? What if Dembele gets some first team action and changes his mind about leaving ? There's loads more what ifs.
What if the 8 games show us nothing ? Well at the very least we will be able to make that opinion on Kennedy with more information. I'm really looking forward to Saturday's game now (the first for a long while) and to see how Kennedy sets the team up and more importantly how he changes it during the game when needed. However if he even thinks about playing Christie up front he can forget about the next 7 games. Kennedy will be keen to win all the games at least for his own reputation and I believe he'll also want to put his own stamp on things to distance himself as best he can from this year's horror show. This is not a pro-Kennedy opinion. I don't have a view either way (as information and insight is limited) but I'm intrigued to what my opinion will be after 8 games. I'm going to predict (this will be 3rd time lucky for me) a 5-0 win versus Aberdeen on Saturday.