It was another underwhelming performance from Daizen Maeda at the weekend.
Aside from the neat link-up play with Tomas Cvancara for Celtic’s second, the left winger was really poor against Hearts.
He even got in the way of one of Cvancara’s efforts while blazing efforts over the bar that were never going to be on target.
That wasn’t even the most concerning part of his game, though, and Martin O’Neill needs to go back to basics with one area of his game.
- READ MORE: Martin O’Neill’s worrying fitness update on Celtic striker Tomas Cvancara after Hearts draw
Rate Daizen Maeda’s performance against Hearts out of 10…
Daizen Maeda’s passing needs serious work
Those watching the nervy encounter at Tynecastle would have been tearing their hair out at the amount of times that Maeda gave the ball away.
Maeda almost cost the Hoops on two or three occasions with careless backpasses or ones that would break down the attack.
This was more noticeable when he had his back to goal. We can all agree that the forward is better when running in behind the channels, but this side of his game needs serious work.
It might seem like a drastic thing to say, but it has been happening for weeks.
Once his passing improves, his all-round game will become far better too.
The beginning of the end for Daizen Maeda at Celtic
There aren’t many Celtic fans who will be expecting Maeda to stay at Celtic beyond this season.
After wanting to leave last summer, the 28-year-old chose to stay to help give himself the best chance of being picked for Japan’s World Cup squad.
Having said that, his form has been out of sorts, to put it kindly, and it feels like the timer on his Celtic career is counting down more and more quickly.
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