After joining in the winter transfer window of the 2021/22 season, Daizen Maeda is preparing for his Celtic exit. It has been a fantastic few years, and now, Hoops fans will be gutted to see him go.
Despite being under fire for underperforming this season, Maeda has found his form in recent weeks. He finishes this season with 16 goals and 10 assists in all competitions, and scored in every post-split game to help the Hoops to the title. That includes a sensational overhead kick against Rangers, which will go down in Celtic history.
Maeda's last match in the hoops will be on Saturday, when the Celts take on Neil Lennon's Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup final. Hopefully, it will be a victory for the green and white to end off Martin O'Neill's and Maeda's time at Parkhead, and what a send-off it would be.
O'Neill spoke about Maeda and the forward's future in his pre-match press conference. He said: "If I was around, I wouldn’t stop Daizen from going.
"He deserves it. He has paid his dues at this football club - massively. Daizen’s last seven weeks have been absolutely Larssonesque.
"He has been the galvanising drive for us. He has been amazing. Daizen started to score the goals, and the boy grabbed the whole thing.
"Henrik did his seven years and left, although he had told me he was going. Daizen has said that if he could get a chance to play in the Premier League, he would want to. I certainly wouldn’t stop him.
"There will be a queue of clubs wanting him down there now after this recent spell."
Maeda will have plenty of options going into next season
It's sad to see him go, but the good news is that Maeda will have plenty of options ahead of next season. Hopefully, he can achieve his dream of playing in the English Premier League, as there have to be a few clubs in the top division who would be willing to give him a chance.
He'll want to remain playing at a decent level so he can stay in the Japanese national team, and if he has a good World Cup, he could have even more offers on the table.
We can all be glad that we got another season out of Maeda. He seemed to have been on his way to the Bundesliga last summer, but the deal fell through, and without him, we would've lost a lot of goals. You have to feel that Celtic's problems up front would've been even worse if we had lost him, so thank the lord we didn't.
And now, he goes with all our respect. What a man, and what a legend.
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