The Maeda Celtic Training Rumours Have Everyone Hoping Except James Tavernier.

Rumours swept Glasgow last night about a fan sit-down with Brendan Rodgers where he claimed that Daizen “Danger Mouse” Maeda is back in training at Celtic and that his strain is not as bad as was feared.

Apparently, this emerged at the latest Fan Forum; I’m going to try and see if I can find a copy of the minutes somewhere and do a full report since my request to attend never even got the courtesy of an answer. Hardly a shock.

But it doesn’t really matter who attends these as long as the rest of us get to know what was discussed, and that the right questions were asked to the right people. I heard quite a bit more from the meeting in relation to players who might not have a future at the club, and if I can verify that I will write more on it, but regular readers will not be surprised.

I have my fingers crossed so much that Maeda is back in training. I can hardly contain my happiness over it. The news that he was likely to be out for the season was the very worst bit of intelligence we could have received. If it’s not true, if he’s back, if the injury isn’t what was feared, then I can only rejoice. Everyone in our support should rejoice.

But we all know somebody who will not; James Tavernier, about whom I’ll be writing more later on today. He must have nightmares about Maeda, and he’s likely to have a few more to haunt him if the little guy is back in action as soon as this. I have never seen him comfortable with Maeda on the pitch. He doesn’t have the pace or the quick wits to contain him.

We won’t know until Brendan sits in front of the hacks, where this will certainly come up. But I’ll be biting my nails until the news is confirmed, which I expect it will be since this is said to have come from the boss himself. We’ll soon find out.

But what a lift this would be for all of us and for the rest of the campaign.

This is the best news we’ll get and the worst news for our rivals. Us being back to a fully fit squad would be quite something in itself, but to have Maeda back for these crucial games … well that’s more than I dared to dream.