One of the positives from yesterday’s defeat to Falkirk was the performance of Hibs’ on-loan winger Matthew Kennedy.
Kennedy is no stranger to manager Alan Stubbs having worked under him for the Everton Under 20s after his move south from Kilmarnock, and yesterday he more than justified his place in the team, winning the ‘man of the match’ award after an impressive display.
Speaking after the game, the youngster admitted that his fitness is still improving and insisted that he can only improve with the benefit of match practice.
Kennedy said: “I’ve worked with the manager for a few years now and he just said go and do your stuff, go and be positive and don’t cut back just keep taking the defender on as many times as you can, and I tried to do that and got by my man quite a few times and got the ball into the box but I did enjoy it, getting ‘man of the match’ on my first start.
“I’ve not had much game time so I was exhausted after 20 minutes but that’s 90 minutes in the bank now and I think I’ll start improving my fitness.
“The gaffer pulled me aside a few times during the game and told me to keep going as I was doing well and keep taking the man on.
“If I do a silly pass or whatever he will get on my case as he is trying to make me a better player as I get on well with him. I enjoy working with him but as I said if I’d something stupid he will get on my case.
“I worked with ‘Heff’ (Paul Heffernan) at Kilmarnock and he is a top goal scorer and Farid (El Alagui) has scored two in two so any other day we’d have scored.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
