There were some frustrated people when Kyogo Furuhashi left Celtic during the January transfer window.
Firstly, leaving midway through the campaign wasn’t helpful, then the powers that be at Celtic Park couldn’t replace their goalscorer, so it just made matters worse.
Yet, fast forward to the present, and Kyogo hasn’t been a miss, as Brendan Rodgers is now one game away from winning yet another Treble in Glasgow.
That was further proven when Celtic brushed aside St Johnstone in the Scottish Cup semi-final on Sunday at Hampden, and booked their final showdown with Aberdeen.
That’s ten goals in Celtic’s last two matches, free-flowing football, and goals galore, with a certain Daizen Maeda playing a huge part in it all and now getting the respect he deserves.
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Celtic forward Daizen Maeda ‘isn’t real’
Maeda has just gone to another level ever since Kyogo departed, and a huge reason behind that is the Japan star being able to regularly play the centre-forward role.
Motherwell duo Tony Watt and Andy Halliday were waxing lyrical about Maeda, including his actions when Celtic scored their third goal against St Johnstone over the weekend.
Watt stated that Maeda just ‘isn’t real’ and he doesn’t think Scottish football has ever seen anything like him, as he told Open Goal.
On Celtic’s favourite front three: “Favourites a stretch,” responded Halliday. “What do I think is the best?
“As it stands, form-wise, I think you have got to put James Forrest in it, because Kuhn has been quite quiet over the last five or six weeks, though. I would go Jota on the left and Maeda up top.
“Maeda has to be in your (Tony Watt’s) bag of madness, but just good madness.”
Watt responded: “I wouldn’t even embarrass myself even speaking about it even if he was close to me. He’s another level. Maeda can’t be a bag of madness. He’s not real. He’s not real!”
Halliday added: “Celtic score the third goal (against St Johnstone). 46 minutes or whatever, something like that. Did you see his press leading to the fourth goal? A minute before half-time, you are thinking 3-0 up, alright, relax. Go and even get a drink and a Jaffa cake. He is pressing the ball like that!”
Watt continued: “We have never seen anything like him in Scotland.”
Maeda’s stats for Celtic this season
You have got to question, what if Maeda was leading the line from the get-go this season, then what numbers would he have hit?
The 27-year-old has always been a livewire, difficult to play against, and he would make the opposition suffer like never before.
But he lacked that consistent, ruthless nature in the final third, and now he has found it, including hitting some serious numbers.
| Competition | Games | Goals | Assists | Minutes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Premiership | 30 | 16 | 7 | 2.217′ |
 | UEFA Champions League | 9 | 4 | 1 | 762′ |
 | SFA Cup | 4 | 7 | – | 360′ |
 | League Cup | 3 | 6 | 1 | 282′ |
| Total 24/25: | 46 | 33 | 9 | 3.621′ | |
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