Filling Ange Celtic void is most daunting Dermot Desmond challenge and John Kennedy could be the answer - Hugh Keevins

Steven Naismith will be called ‘technical director’ at Hearts to get around his lack of qualifications and satisfy UEFA’s criteria for managers involved in European matches.

The next Celtic manager will also have a different title. Human sacrifice. This is to comply with the supporters’ criteria that new managerial appointments have to be demonstrably better than the one before, even if there is an obvious problem. The main difficulty facing Ange Postecoglou’s successor is clear. He’s not Ange Postecoglou.

The Revered One has gone to Spurs and left behind a distinct style of football that was so unique, no-one else could live with it on a domestic level. It was copyright Postecoglou and if Ange’s replacement tinkers with it – and fails – he runs the risk of breaking a spell and creating reputational difficulties for himself. That’s why I believe Celtic should be making a greater effort to hold on to John Kennedy and make him their new manager.

Kennedy represents continuity of the kind that would help the cast of players brought to the club by Postecoglou, and who came here to play for the Aussie. The extent to which the Asian contingent at Celtic are unsettled by Ange’s exit has yet to be quantified. But it won’t take long to translate the body language of Kyogo & Co. when the new season starts.

Celtic’s principal shareholder Dermot Desmond wouldn’t want the media’s sympathy over the onerous task of having to replace his world record-breaking Treble winner manager. Mainly because Dermot has Prince Harry’s regard for journalists. He adheres to the legendary Tommy Docherty’s assertion that: “There’s a place for the press. They just haven’t dug it yet.”

But the void Postecoglou leaves behind might be the most daunting