JOHN KENNEDY believes that Celtic should have won against Rangers, and that his side were denied a clear penalty by referee Willie Collum.

The Celtic interim manager was pleased by the performance put in by his men despite his disappointment at only taking a point from the meeting with their city rivals, but he was adamant that Odsonne Edouard should have been awarded a spot-kick after going down under the challenge of Borna Barisic.

The striker was instead shown a yellow card for simulation, and Kennedy says that decision cost Celtic their first win over Rangers this season.

“Performance wise it was good,” Kennedy said. “It was a high level performance in terms of the way we controlled the game. I thought we were dominant for most of the game.

“It was a really great goal we scored, a terrific goal. It was an area we wanted to exploit and it came off. I was pleased in that aspect.

“I was disappointed with the goal we conceded, but our reaction to that was good. We got ourselves back in the game, we controlled the ball again and we weren’t too nervy.

“We just built our way back in and started creating chances. It was a good performance, a lot of control, a lot of good chances, especially for a game like this, which we didn’t capitalise on probably. “We could have taken more advantage from them. We were denied a penalty kick as well which would have had a massive say in the game.

“I spoke to Odsonne. In terms of that contact, if you get any sort of contact in the box when a player comes flying at you at that speed [it is hard to stay up].

“If you slow it down you can say: ‘Oh, I’m not really sure much was there’. If you play it full speed, the player comes recklessly in, knocks you off balance and just touches you enough to go over. That is what has happened there. He knocked him over.

“If he doesn’t go over, he has got the ball, he scores a goal. So there is no need for him to go down. He is a goalscorer, he wants to score as many goals as possible. He is not that type of player.

“We feel aggrieved we didn’t get a penalty kick, but we have got to accept that and look at the bigger picture of the performance, which was good.

“I have not had a chance [to speak to Willie Collum]. Again, I have been in with the players and then have come straight out here.

“It is disappointing. In games like this, these decisions are massive, they are really important. Willie will have his opinion on it, other people might think differently, but we are sure it was a penalty.”

Kennedy’s post-match frustration was also aimed at his players for conceding yet another goal from a set-piece.

“It is something we have worked a lot on and will continue to work on,” he said. “We will never stop until we fix it. Even when we fix it we will continue with that.

“I don’t want the review of the game to be about Celtic conceding at another set play. I want people to look at the actual performance. We showed we were the better team, we created better chances and ultimately we should have won the game.

“It is something we will fix and continue trying to address. But overall the quality of performance was good.”

Meanwhile, Kennedy echoed the sentiments of captain Scott Brown as he spoke of Celtic’s support for Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara and the fight against racism.

“It’s important,” he said. “This is not about rivalries, derbies, opposition teams or anything else. This about unity, about coming together and trying to make a difference. It has gone on too long.

“It seems to be happening more and more even though there is more education and news about it. It is spoken about more and more. I don’t know if it is because of that, but there seems to be more of it happening. It is not acceptable, absolutely not acceptable.

“What happens is you give someone, whoever it might be, a punishment for it, a severe punishment at that, it will quickly eradicate it.”