It’s time Celtic offered our Japanese warrior a contract extension.

Everyone at this club has their own set of priorities, but I think the football department has a major one right now that some people might be in danger of overlooking. Or maybe they just assume that the summer will be the optimal time for the most pointless sale of them all.

In July 2023, Daizen Maeda—who has just won the Player of the Month award, deservedly so, for one of the most outstanding months of football I’ve seen from a Celtic player in years—signed a new four-year deal, keeping him at the club until 2027.

That deal now has two years left, and I think another two-year extension is in order if we can get him and his agent around the table and agree on the terms.

This would demonstrate that the club is serious about keeping its best players. It would show that we recognise how invaluable Maeda is, and that replacing him adequately would be virtually impossible. That’s no exaggeration. The energy he brings to the team, especially on that left-hand side, his work rate, his running, his skill set—who out there could come in and do that job?

Replacing Maeda would cost millions, more than we can realistically afford to spare, so it makes far more sense not to even try. It makes sense to tie him down for as long as possible and then moan like crazy when the day finally comes that he has to go. The job of everyone at Celtic right now should be to put that day off for as long as possible. That means not waiting until there’s only 12 months left on his deal.

I said in an earlier piece that a lot of what we do in the summer will depend on how Brendan Rodgers answers a critical question: is there someone out there who can play as a central striker, is better than Maeda, and can guarantee what he offers in that role? If the answer is no, then Maeda will be our central striker next season, and Rodgers will look for his replacement on the left.

And if Maeda is that good, then we simply have to tie him down for the long term. Because, as sure as night follows day, this board will want to recoup some money for him at some point. But right now, if you told me we’d get another two years of Daizen at the club before he left on a free transfer, I’d probably be delighted.

That is a footballer who has paid his transfer fee five, ten, twenty times over. Considering what we signed him for, it’s one of the greatest bargains in our history—except for the King of Kings himself.

But why settle for two years when you can have three? Why not give him another two years on his deal? If he wants to go after year three, we could still recoup a chunk of the money and enjoy him for another three campaigns in the meantime.

Maeda is as close to Larsson as I’ve seen in the Hoops—a player I cannot imagine not being part of this squad. I said at the start of the season that, aside from McGregor, he is the most irreplaceable footballer in this team.

You have to wonder what he’d be worth on the open market. More, much more, I think, than we got for Kyogo.

Probably a Matt O’Riley-level fee. He genuinely is that good. But it seems like a ridiculous question because trying to replace him would cost more than Arne Engels.

And when you consider that we paid £9 million for Adam Idah, you’re into the realms of the ridiculous.

So if we have to make him one of the top earners at the club, so be it. That’s where he belongs anyway. He’s one of the best players in the squad, one of the best we’ve had in many years. If it takes a big fat cheque to keep him here, then sign that cheque, because replacing him will cost even more.

Not only might we already have the best striker we’re likely to get—short of shelling out another club-record fee—but even if he doesn’t play through the middle, you have to consider whether Brendan Rodgers would sacrifice Maeda’s role up front just to play him out on the left. That, in itself, is a staggering testament to what he brings to the team.

Extending his deal would be one of the best developments at Celtic right now. If we don’t do it before the summer, the entire transfer window will be filled with interminable worry that some club will come in and make an offer this board won’t want to refuse.

It may well be that Maeda himself thinks this is the right time to go. We can’t rule that out. But when he signed his last deal two years ago, he certainly wasn’t thinking in those terms. He’s also a more important player now than he was then—far more central to the manager’s plans. He’s got a taste of the big time in the Champions League and knows we have a strong chance of being back there again.

All things considered, this is one of the most important moves we could make right now. Get in front of his agent, find out what he wants, and make him an offer good enough to keep him here a little longer.

If he signs a two-year extension, we’d still have the option to sell him at the end of year three. And whatever we make, we’d have had the privilege of watching an exceptional footballer for almost the same length of time we had Larsson.

That would be a fitting way to remember the best forward line player we’ve had since the King of Kings himself. And yes, I’m ready to call him that.

Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images