Celtic handed late Daizen Maeda blow for Glasgow Derby

Celtic might be the team in form heading into the upcoming Glasgow Derby against the Rangers, but Ange Postecoglou’s side have their fair share of worries as well. The biggest of them is surrounding the availability of key players. With Kyogo, Callum McGregor, David Turnbull, Yosuke Ideguchi and a few others expected to miss through injury and Nir Bitton through suspension. On the other hand, Tom Rogic and Daizen Maeda are away on international duty.

There were hopes though that they could potentially feature if they did not play a significant role for their national teams on the day before the Glasgow Derby.

Judging from Rogic’s form, he is expected to start for Australia against Oman. But for a long time, it had looked like things were going Celtic’s way with regards to Maeda, who had been named on the bench for Japan, in their World Cup Qualifier against Saudi Arabia.

With Japan going 2-0 up in the 50th minute, there were hopes that things would stay that way but unfortunately for Celtic, Maeda was brought on as a substitute in the 68th minute of the game. Now, it remains to be seen if he is able to feature in the Glasgow Derby against the Rangers just a day later.

Celtic handed late Maeda blow for Glasgow Derby

It is safe to say that the situation is far from ideal for Celtic. Giorgos Giakoumakis is their only available forward at the moment.

And while the Greek international has looked better in the last few games, one has to admit that as a team, Celtic perform better with a more active forward up top, especially in Postecoglou’s system.

It remains to be seen if Maeda can feature against the Rangers. It is very unlikely that he will start but there could potentially be a chance of him being available on the bench, considering that he featured for less than 30 minutes for Japan.