Back in Glasgow: Celtic star Daizen Maeda sends message to supporters on Instagram

By John McGinley

March 28, 2023

Celtic forward Daizen Maeda is back in Glasgow today after returning home from international duty early due to fitness concerns.

Maeda has been nursing a knee problem ever since colliding with Hearts goalkeeper Zander Clark during Celtic’s 3-1 victory over the Edinburgh side earlier this month. The Japanese talent showed bravery and quick thinking to get to the ball first, scoring in the process.

Unfortunately, that incident resulted in him missing the Scottish Cup clash three days later. He returned to the team for the win over Hibs just prior to the international break and really tried to be in the right condition to feature for his country in friendlies, but is now back in Scotland.

Posting a picture of a day out with his family, Maeda said on Instagram this afternoon: “Sorry to have caused any inconvenience. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t show my performance to everyone in Japan, but I’ll do my best to get back to the team and perform well and return to the Japanese national team. Thank you for your support!”

The likelihood is that we don’t get a proper injury update on Maeda, Reo Hatate, Liel Abada, Aaron Mooy and others until the manager does his pre-match press conference on Friday – unless he does an interview with Celtic TV prior to that.

For the most part, it seems that Celtic’s physios, as well as the medical staff at the international teams, have taken the right precautions with all of our players and not exposed them to match action when it wasn’t needed.

It was sensible for Maeda to come home early, too, rather than sit on the bench to cheer on his Japan teammates today, in a 2-1 defeat to Colombia.

Maeda will hopefully be back in Celtic training and taking part in matches before too long. We have some massive games on the horizon that Ange Postecoglou would like him fit for.

In other news, Joey Dawson suffers long-term injury after 20-goal Celtic B run; out until 2024.