Lack of Celtic contact is 'hard to take' as loan star takes inspiration from former bomb squad pal

Johnny Kenny admits a lack of contact from Celtic despite scoring goals for Shamrock Rovers is "hard to take."

The striker penned a five-year deal with the Premiership champions after they plucked him from Sligo Rovers as an 18-year-old back in January 2022, before being loaned to Queen's Park the following summer. A return to Ireland in January 2023 turned into a two-season loan and Kenny is now approaching the end of the 2024 League of Ireland campaign with Rovers.

Kenny is in the running for the division's golden boot and has the Tallaght team in the mix for a fifth successive league title, as well as a Europa Conference League clash with Chelsea on the horizon. All of which has left him struggling to understand a relative lack of contact from his parent club. They brought in fellow countryman Adam Idah for £9.5million in the summer so Kenny is understandably down the pecking order, but there's been less communication than he would have expected.

“It’s difficult. They are my current club, but you just have to try prove them wrong on the pitch and see what comes of it,” he told the Irish Independent. “It’s a message here and there from Darren O’Dea [Celtic’s professional player pathway manager], that’s it, that’s all it is. I’m into the last few months of my deal now at Celtic, so we’ll just see what happens.

“It’s hard to take. Last year, [the lack of contact was] fair enough because I wasn’t really performing. But this year, I think I have performed well and I have gotten minimal contact from them. But look, I’ll just keep going game by game and see where it takes me. I’m always hopeful of getting an opportunity [at Celtic], but it might be limited. It would be a dream to play over there, but we’ll wait and see."

Ken