Celtic: ‘I’m not sure I learned much more’ about my squad, says Martin O’Neill

“Most teams that play against Celtic are comfortable to leave them with possession as long as they don’t play through the lines,” former Celtic defender Jackie McNamara said.

“They force them wide and say ‘we’ll deal with it’ because they don’t have a target man in the middle to win those headers.

“If they did they would score many more goals but you can see with Kenny it’s not his game. He’s a second striker and not an out and out number nine.”

Former Hearts striker Ryan Stevenson was similarly unimpressed by some of Celtic’s starters.

“Martin will have learned a lot today about players who are on the fringes,” he said.

“He and his backroom staff will have a meeting and they’ll say ‘he didn’t grasp his opportunity’ or ‘I don’t think he did well enough’ or ‘he did do well enough’.

“James Forrest did well and Luke McCowan worked hard but there’s too many that have kind of gone through the motions.”

Kenny himself hopes his goal can spark a better run of form before crucial matches in Europe against Bologna and Utrecht, either side of a Scottish Premiership trip to league leaders Hearts.

“That’s the life of a striker, you need to be ready when something comes,” he said. “It’s been a tough few weeks. Every striker misses chances and hopefully I can go on a run.

“We know we’re a good side. We’ve had a bit of a blip but we can only focus game by game and that’s Bologna on Thursday night.”