Daizen Maeda has the opportunity to go on and become a Celtic legend. Surely the board wouldn't countenance selling him if a large bid came in?

03/31/2025 02:05 PM

Brendan Rodgers spoke in a recent press conference about wanting to secure Daizen Maeda on a long term deal.

The Celtic manager stated he had spoken to Dermot Desmond about the Japanese striker.

He also said that he was sure it was something that could be done.

Maeda himself has been extremely quiet through all of this speculation.

Then again, he is the epitome of a guy who just does his talking on the park.

As Rodgers pointed out last Friday, he isn’t a man of many words, so football really is his language.

It’s hard to know at this point what the player himself actually wants.

Maeda seems very happy at the club, in fact, it’s the one thing he repeats over and over again.

But a striker who scores 30+ goals in a season?

Regardless of what league he plays in, that will attract attention from other clubs.

Maeda is no different in that regard.

Last January, as the transfer window was coming to a close, we talked about this in detail.

When we knew that Kyogo Furuhashi was headed to Rennes, we discussed the possibility of Daizen Maeda playing through the middle as a striker on the Trinity Tims podcast.

We all felt it was a move that would be forced on the manager as a result of Kyogo’s departure.

And the lack of a replacement for him, of course.

We knew that if Maeda was moved into the central striker role, he could do a job.

What we didn’t know was to what extent he would do that job.

It’s crystal clear now that he was made for the role, as he has been scoring goals for fun since then.

However, we all agreed that the board should not be made to look like geniuses as a result of this.

Because make no mistake, Brendan Rodgers was forced into having to make that move.

It was clear back in January that he wasn’t happy with that.

Now, I have no doubt that he is happy now, so much so that he recently even suggested he wouldn’t need to buy another striker in the summer, and that a winger might be more on the cards.

This would indicate that even he didn’t expect the return he’s got from Maeda since Kyogo’s departure.

Having said that, there is no doubt that the board see themselves as geniuses now.

They’re delighted that their risk in January really paid off.

Or to plebs like you and I, they knew best all along.

And the misplaced confidence from that outcome could prove to be a dangerous thing.

That’s what worries me.

Because in the summer window, if a big bid came in for Maeda, could we see them resisting the temptation to let him go?

Maeda, I’m sure, knows himself that he has an opportunity to become a legend at Celtic.

He knows that another extended run in the Champions League is definitely on the cards.

And I would imagine there is no doubting he’s very excited at the prosect of being the main striker for us in that campaign.

But let’s just say a club south of the border comes calling with the magic number?

We know anything north of £25 million will tempt the board.

Surely they wouldn’t countenance letting two top strikers leave over the course of one season?

To answer that question, I’m pretty sure this is why Brendan Rodgers has approached Dermot Desmond with a view to getting him to sign a new long term deal.

Rodgers is no fool.

He knows Maeda’s value is soaring on a game to game basis.

While the fact that he’s scoring goals must delight the manger, I’ve no doubt he knows the board are thinking cha-ching!

Who knows?

Even as James pointed out over on the Celtic Blog recently, getting Maeda signed up on a new deal could also be the catalyst to the manager signing a new deal too.

Look, it makes perfect sense to get him signed up.

We all know that.

But until such time as that happens, the danger looms that a large offer could come in for him in the summer.

I just think we’ll all relax a lot more if this is done quickly.

If it is, then we also know there’s a good chance the manager will sign an extension to his deal too.

Can we trust the board to do the right thing here?

Well, I’ll put it this way, have we ever trusted them to do the right thing?

That’s why I won’t rest easy until this is a done deal.

And you can’t really blame me for that, can you?

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