Daizen Maeda delivered the goal that sealed Celtic’s Premiership title on the last day of the season, and now two former forwards say the Japanese winger may be close to impossible to replace if he leaves this summer.
Chris Sutton said Maeda has been “sensational” and stressed that his value goes well beyond the role of a single attacker. “All the talk is about him leaving. How do you replace him? How much is it going to cost to replace him? You are not talking about a guy in one position. You are talking about a guy who can play multiple positions and play them incredibly well,” Sutton said. He added that Maeda’s work out of possession means he can “produce the goods against the elite.”
Kris Boyd went even further. “You have played with some greats at the football club, who have moved on. But I have never seen anything like Maeda. He is pretty much irreplaceable for what he does. It’s incredible,” he said. Boyd also noted that while clubs can replace a goalscorer with another goalscorer, “you are not going to bring somebody in who does what Daizen Maeda does.”
The title came against Hearts, with Celtic finishing ahead of them on the final day, and Maeda’s strike proved decisive in a season when the Scottish champions had real problems finding a regular goalscorer. The side also had players who were not performing, were not good enough, or were not fit enough, which made Maeda’s all-action form even more important as the campaign closed. He turned it on in the post-split fixtures and carried that momentum into the run-in.
The questions around his future are not new. Maeda was linked with a Premier League move last summer, and he has spoken about his desire to live out a childhood dream by playing in what he described as the “best league in the world.” Boyd said that if a move comes, it will be one of the more intriguing transfer stories of the summer. “Where would you say is a realistic move for Daizen Maeda? Could you see him going to the English Premier League and being a success? He has been linked with the Bundesliga before,” he said.
For Celtic, the next step is as much about keeping hold of a player who drove them over the line as it is about adding to the squad. The discussion around Maeda now carries the weight of a title-winning goal and a longer season that showed how difficult he is to duplicate.
