The Completely Unsellable Daizen Maeda

Like all of Celtic’s forward players Daizen Maeda hasn’t exactly had the greatest of starts to the season…

He looked a little rusty and lacklustre against St Mirren and Aberdeen in the opening two league fixtures of the season but he remains our biggest threat through the middle when he eventually gets the chance to play as a striker.

Form is temporary and class is permanent as they say, and that looked to be the case for Daizen as he looked more like his old self in the 4-1 thumping of Falkirk in the Premier Sports League Cup on Friday evening at Celtic Park.

Daizen’s all-round game was excellent on Friday night 

Not just because of his goal which kickstarted the victory as we eased into the quarter finals, but his all-round game was excellent as he ran himself into the ground once more as he covered every inch of grass whilst posing a serious threat for the hour or so he was on the park.

Daizen was a worthy Player of the Year last season, he was so good even the hacks had no choice other than give him the award, admittedly through gritted teeth. So Brendan Rodgers needs to do all we can to hold onto him this transfer window especially after losing the valuable contributions of Nicolas Kuhn.

Daizen and KT are forming a promising partnership 

On his day Nicolas was superb for us, especially on the biggest stage of all, in the UEFA Champions League. However Daizen is better and much more important to the side in so many ways. He also looks as if he’s building up a terrific understanding with Kieran Tierney on the left hand side of the park, which can only benefit us this season when the pair get that relationship fully formed.

Chris Sutton reckons Daizen must not be sold – even for £75m!

Yesterday Chris Sutton was saying in his newspaper column that even for £75m Daizen should NOT be sold – although the chances of the Celtic Board knocking that sort of money back are nil, as we all know.

Daizen is likely to attract bids of around £15m from the likes of Brentford – a club that has won nothing in its entire history. That would be a crazy decision by Celtic to sell Daizen even if they had already signed replacements for both Kyogo and Nicolas Kuhn. If Michael Nicholson is finding it difficult to replace Kyogo and Khun well I can tell him now that it would be simply IMPOSSIBLE to replace Daizen Maeda.

Losing Kyogo in January was bad enough. Then selling Nicolas Kuhn in July was another blow, but both are losses we can move on from, but losing Daizen would be catastrophic as he’s a player whose talents we can ill afford to be deprived of. We need to do all we can to keep Daizen at the club for the challenges ahead.

Chris Sutton also noted that Brendan’s remarks on Daizen staying at the club were hardly emphatic and of course his observations are both accurate and concerning. The biggest concern is that the talk of a contract extension – and a pay rise taking Daizen’s modest salary (in terms of the Celtic squad) up towards the top earners like Calmac and CCV.

If that hasn’t happened it’s likely more to do with the player and his agents rather than Celtic. But he has two years remaining and IF he doesn’t want to go then Celtic should simply tell him that he will NOT be sold in this transfer window or indeed in January, then cash in next summer with no reduction in the fee that should be achieved.

Daizen isn’t the type of player who would down tools and even if he did he’d be damaging his own chances of getting a move. Plus staying at Celtic for at least one more season (all going well in the play-offs) would given him one more chance at playing Champions League football.

That’s not happening anytime soon at Brentford.