As Premier League interest grows, can Celtic keep Daizen Maeda?

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The Celtic Star

·7 maggio 2025

As Premier League interest grows, can Celtic keep Daizen Maeda?

Daizen Maeda’s player of the year accolades are well deserved and no-one can argue with that. He will only get better and better and hopefully that’s with Celtic…

Daizen Maeda won Multiple awards at the Celtic POTY Awards including Player of the Year and Players Player of the Year. Photo Celtic FC

£50m price tag mentioned for Maeda

With talk of multiple top clubs from England’s Premier League being interested and with sums of up to £50m now being mentioned the harsh reality of every player having his price might hit us hard this summer but hopefully we can retain Daizen for another year or two at least.

OneFootball Video

Daizen Maeda unsurprisingly hoovered up the prizes at the Celtic player of the year awards as well as being named SPFA player of the year on Sunday evening after a blistering campaign.

Daizen Maeda of Celtic scores his team’s second goal during the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup Semi Final match between St Johnstone and Celtic at Hampden Park on April 20, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Stunning season from Daizen, scoring 33 goals with 12 assists

The Japanese striker has added a new dimension to his game this season scoring 33 goals and registering 12 assists in all competitions so far as the club closes in on a domestic treble.

Daizen has always been a terrific player and popular figure amongst the supporters due to his non stop energy and commitment, but under the overall leadership of Brendan Rodgers he’s added more qualities in the shape of goals as he rapidly develops into the complete centre forward, and is quite simply the most valuable asset on our books.

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‘Thank you my teacher’

Notably Daizen himself thanked Harry Kewell and called him his ‘teacher’ after collecting his awards. Harry’s currently out of work, it would not be the worst idea to bring him back to Celtic as a forward coach, after his time in the top job in Japan didn’t work out.

Daizen Maeda on Instagram – a message for Harry Kewell “Thank you my teacher”

Daizen will only get better and at 27 he’s hitting the peak of his career, and hopefully those best years will be spent at Celtic.

Daizen’s superb form hasn’t gone unnoticed

As you’d expect his superb form hasn’t gone unnoticed, and indeed it was recently reported that certain big name EPL clubs were considering a bid for the Japanese international. The money being talked about would exceed the sum achieved last year from the sale of Matt O’Riley to Brighton.

Matt O’Riley signs for Brighton from Celtic for a fee of £25m. Photo Brighton & Hove Albion FC

We are realistic enough to know that if a bumper offer was made he would be on his way, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that and we can hold on to Daizen for as along as possible. Daizen has qualities that few other players have. By adding that goalscoring return this season the interest is likely to go through the roof.

“Yes, the gaffer spoke to me about it. But, as I said, there are still some games to be played this season, so I just want to focus on them,” Daizen Maeda

He spoke on Sunday about Brendan Rodgers speaking to him about a new deal but kicked that down the road by saying he’s concentrating on the remaining games this season and obviously the Scottish Cup Final.

A relentless season from Celtic’s Japanese sensation, Daizen Maeda is PFA Scotland Premiership Player of the Year. Listen to his reaction after the award 🏆 @CelticFC
– domenica 4 maggio 2025

“Yes, the gaffer spoke to me about it. But, as I said, there are still some games to be played this season, so I just want to focus on them,” Daizen said at the PFA Scotland POTY awards on Sunday night. “I know this number of goals is not easy to achieve, so I don’t want to think too much about this being the objective for next season. I would like to focus on everything, including goals, and then in the end, maybe I can achieve something.”

Hopefully that’s at Celtic.

Ange Postecolgou holding the Scottish Cup in June 2023 ahead of his departure to join Tottenham. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

There’s no commitment beyond the end of the season from Daizen, and it ominously sounds just a little bit like Ange Postecoglou ahead of the 2023 Scottish Cup Final against Inverness Caley Thistle. Yes he has years left on his contract but that simply gets Celtic the fee that they’d be looking for.

PFA Scotland POTY winners Daizen Maeda and Emma Lawton both of Celtic FC. Photo PFA Scotland

Back in the day Celtic took the decision to keep Henrik Larsson at the club and it certainly paid off. Maybe that’s what the plan should be with Daizen but if he is to be sold it should NOT be this summer surely? Bring back his ‘teacher’ and develop him further, you never know his value could be even higher after another brilliant season in the Hoops.

Emma Lawton PFA Scotland Women’s Player of the Year but not Celtic’s

Incidentally Celtic’s Emma Lawton, shown above with Daizen Maeda, winning the PFA Scotland Women’s POTY as voted by players at the other clubs in the division yet as the best player in the league she got NOTHING at the Celtic POTY awards, including NOT winning the Players Player of the Year. There was an interesting article on The Celtic Star yesterday about what’s gone wrong at Celtic FC Women – it’s well worth a read.

Just an Ordinary Bhoy

Celtic Women FC Manager, Elena Sadiku during the ScottishPower Women’s Premier League. Rangers FC vs Celtic FC. Broadwood Stadium, Cumbernauld, 13/04/2025. Image Credit: Colin Poultney/SWPL

READ THIS…Celtic FC Women drop out of Title Race – Time to look at Causes and Cures

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