Brendan Rodgers has heaped praise on Daizen Maeda’s transformation into Celtic’s central striker and made it clear that the Japanese international’s long-term future could well lie through the middle.
Speaking ahead of the trip to face St Johnstone, the Celtic manager reflected on what has been a remarkable run for Maeda. The forward has hit 30 goals this season, many of which have come since Rodgers deployed him as a striker in February.
He’s on a fantastic run at the moment, scoring in his last consecutive five games, and picking up back to back player of the month awards.
“A remarkable few months he’s had, but also a remarkable season. To be sat on 30 goals where primarily he played as a winger.
“Before February, he had the odd game was a striker, but since February we’ve put him in there.
“He’s everything that I want to see in a central striker. His work rate, his intensity, and then of course the movement he makes for his goals.
“The first one last week, even Jota’s goal, the sharpness of his movement to get the header. He’s just so instinctive, but also his reading of situations is so good.
“I think he’s improved on his technical level, his finishing, and that comes with confidence as well.
“He’s been in various positions. When you see him play through the centre, you feel that he’s going to get goals and he’s going to create goals. I’m very happy for him.
“I think the situation was that Kyogo was the central striker here along with Adam Idah. He’s played a lot of his games off the side and was still effective there.
“You trace it back to when he was in Yokohama. I really feel he can play in that position.”
Rodgers did acknowledge that Maeda hadn’t initially been considered as the club’s main striker this season, with Kyogo Furuhashi and Adam Idah both ahead of him in that role. But with Kyogo moving on and January recruitment falling short of the expected standard, Maeda seized his chance.
“In January, I didn’t want him to have to play in that position because I wanted the squad to be as strong as we could,” Rodgers told Celtic TV.
“But I felt that if we didn’t get a striker, there’s no doubt he can play there. He’s hopefully shown why that is. His movement, pace, technical ability, but also the hunger in his pressing is massive. He’s played ever so well and consistently well.”
With his pace, pressing, and positional intelligence, Maeda has proven he can thrive as a number nine, and Rodgers looks ready to continue leaning on his in-form forward through the title run-in.
The question on many Celtic fans’ lips is, ‘How many more goals can the striker score?’. Can he match or beat Leigh Griffiths’ 40 from the 15/16 campaign?
