KIERAN KENNEDY has had a brush with greatness during his time in the game.

A member of the Manchester City youth academy from the age of five, the defender was skilled in the ways of some of the Premier League’s greatest players before an initial loan spell at Leicester developed into a permanent move to the King Power Stadium.

It was here he mixed it with the players who are now just a handful of games away from being crowned English champions in one of the most extraordinary title run ins in modern history.

Despite that grand introduction to life as a professional footballer, the 22-year-old who now spends his time anchoring the defence in the claret and amber of Motherwell claims it was moving to Lanarkshire that signified the biggest moment in his career and not spending his days at Leicester attempting to mark James Vardy.

A player who has been in the game now for seven years, it was not until Kennedy arrived at Fir Park before he actually made his career competitive first-team debut – coming in the lavish setting of Bayview in a League Cup tie back in August. Eighteen more appearances have followed in a stuttering season for the Manchester man. However, his presence next to Stephen McManus in Motherwell’s last three games – Louis Laing and Ben Hall have both been injured – have resulted in three wins for Mark McGhee’s team. As they head up to Inverness this weekend aiming for it to be four, Kennedy is content to appreciate how far he has come as his Motherwell journey continues to head north.

"I've loved every minute of it here,” he said. “It's my first season of playing first-team football and it's been great.

"Motherwell have given me an opportunity to play and I'm improving every day. The gaffer has given me a lot of advice and tips and it's improved me as a player and as a person.

"This has been the biggest step of my career - playing in front of crowds and playing for three points every week.”

Kennedy added: "A few of my mates had been on loan up in Scotland and told me to go for it. They told me the fans were really passionate and they told me only good things.

"Adam Drury and Ellis Plummer had been on loan from City to St Mirren. I'd been at City from the age of five to 19 or 20.”

The illustrious company the centre-half has kept during his time in English football has clearly rubbed off on him, even if his experiences only went as far as training with them or playing in the odd friendly. Like the rest of us, Kennedy has been taken aback by the meteoric rise of Leicester this campaign as they go into the weekend five points clear of Tottenham Hotspur at the top of the Premier League.

It is a far cry from the beast that Kennedy was a part of, even in the background, that was struggling to stay alive in the most unforgiving of football environments.

"I didn't expect this. It's madness,” he said. "I always fancied them to stay up last season because they weren't getting beaten by much in games.

"I want them to go on and win it - it would be good for football. I got to play a few pre-season games with Leicester at the start of last season. Wes Morgan and Robert Huth were different class, the way they spoke to me. They'd put an arm round you if you needed it or you made a mistake.

"They are real professionals. There is no messing about with them at all. We used to do set-pieces with them in training and they were just as brutal as they are in a game. Huth would stand on my toes and give me the banter. I wouldn't like to mark him in a real game. I can only imagine the type of stuff he'd be doing.

"I marked Vardy a few times in training and he's something else. He's so sharp and he's surprisingly decent in the air as well. You could mark him in training for half an hour and not give him a kick - then suddenly he scores a hat-trick. It's instinct and he's been different class this season.”

Motherwell go into the match without Louis Laing, Stephen Pearson, James McFadden and perhaps captain Keith Lasley, while John Hughes, the Inverness manager, was in the unfamiliar position of naming just two absentees for the crucial match - Aaron Doran and David Raven.

While the visitors sit in fifth knowing a win would just about secure them a top-six place, anything but a win for ninth-placed Caley Thistle – four points adrift of Ross County in sixth with three games to play – could end their own hopes of escaping a nervy end-of-season finale.

"We know we have a hill to climb, but we're not writing ourselves off,” said Liam Hughes, the Inverness forward. “We're as capable of making the top six as any other team. We need to start with three points against Motherwell and go from there."