Celtic winger Daizen Maeda continued his trend of dominant Glasgow Derby displays in his side’s 2-1 victory over Rangers at Parkhead.
The Japan international once again gave James Tavernier a torrid time on the left-hand side, tracking his every move and limiting his creative influence in Glasgow’s east end.
Nevertheless, Maeda’s offensive influence received widespread acclaim this time around. The standout moment being his role in Celtic’s second goal, which John Lundstram plundered into the bottom corner.
From Cameron Carter-Vickers’ switch of play, the 26-year-old plucked the ball out of the sky before chopping onto his left-hand side and sliding a centre across that the former Sheffield United man couldn’t contend with.
Queue wild celebrations from the Celtic support as Maeda jumped into the crowd to soak up the admiration of his adoring public. However, Willie Collum booked the former Yokohama F. Marinos man after deeming his jaunt into the crowd as over-zealous.
Either way, he will undoubtedly feel the scenes witnessed in the wake of the Hoops’ gaining a two-goal advantage were worth it on an occasion when Celtic pushed themselves to the brink of claiming the Scottish Premiership title.
Daizen Maeda’s amusing response to Willie Collum decision
Pleading his innocence, Maeda has taken to social media platform X to poke some fun at the booking he picked up against Rangers.
As seen below, the tweet reads: ‘I didn’t know that if you go up to the fans you get a yellow card! Oh well!’ followed by a peace sign emoji in reply to the official Celtic X account, signalling he didn’t actually know that engaging with the crowd would lead to a yellow card.
It is a shame Collum had to put Maeda in the book due to rules applied up and down the country; however, the Japanese attacker doesn’t seem too bothered by the decision and certainly isn’t going to let it dampen his side’s achievement at Parkhead yesterday.
Once again, he was a vital cog in Brendan Rodgers’ tactical framework as Celtic moved to within touching distance of the finish line.
With two league matches and the Scottish Cup final against Ragers to come, it would be great if Maeda could continue his positive form and play his part in a potential domestic double.