CHRISTOPHER JULLIEN hopes that Celtic can hang onto John Kennedy after the club’s assistant manager played a pivotal role in helping him to settle into life with the Scottish champions, believing he will make a great manager in the future.

Kennedy has been linked with the vacant managerial position at Hibernian, but Jullien doesn’t think the prospect of becoming his own man in Edinburgh will be enough to tempt Kennedy away from Glasgow at this moment in time.

Instead, he thinks that in the longer term, Kennedy may well be ideally placed to take over as Celtic manager.

“He has all the things to become a great manager,” Jullien said. “He has the quality for being a good manager, that is for sure.

“He is really important for us. He’s really good for me but every other player too. Who would leave Celtic?

“Since I arrived, he’s been there for me. When you arrive somewhere new it’s sometimes difficult.

You can have some tough times to settle and things like that. He was always there and showed me the good stuff I was doing as well as the bad stuff.

“I’m so happy to have this guy close to me. He made me learn some things about the club and how to play. I’m really happy to have him on my side.

“He’s in a really good place right now. What he’s teaching and doing for us on the field is really good. For his age I think it’s really good what he’s doing.

“He’s always giving so much advice,” he continued. “He’s a really calm guy.

“I didn’t see any of the games he played so I don’t know if he was different when he was a player. You can compare him to a player with us though.

“You can see he was out on the field not a long time ago. You can see he wants to give and that’s the really great thing for us.”