Dessers and Maeda “comparisons” are idiotic. Celtic fans know there is no comparison.

There are times when I read something so absurd that I know I’m going to write about it, even if I don’t get around to it for a couple of days—maybe even a week. One of those stories popped up earlier this week.

My first instinct was to write about it immediately. Then I thought, “Ignore it, it’s too stupid to dignify.” But the more I pondered it, the more I felt the need to tear it down.

It’s the article in the Daily Record—where else?—which attempted to compare Cyriel Dessers with our own Daizen Maeda.

Now, for me, the stupidity of the comparison is going to be laid bare at Celtic Park on Sunday. There’s little doubt in my mind that we’ll see it exposed for the absolute lunacy that it is. But do we really need to wait that long to call this one out as some mad Ibrox fan fantasy?

As usual, the writer of this preposterous puff piece is focusing on the wrong thing. He’s looking solely at the number of goals the players have scored and trying to build an argument from that. Forget the fact that Maeda has spent most of the season playing wide left and has only recently moved into the central role, where he is excelling like never before. If you’re basing it purely on goals, you’re leaving out an awful lot that actually matters.

I mean, it almost feels foolish having to write this. Every Celtic fan knows that this comparison is ridiculous. It embarrasses anyone actually trying to make it. Dessers wouldn’t get in the Celtic squad—that’s a fact. No matter how many goals he scores, he would not make this team.

For much of this season, the best player in the country by a mile was Nicolas Kühn. He looked as if he was going to run away with all the Player of the Year awards, and at that point, I’d have put the mortgage on him winning it.

But things have changed. Maeda is now so far ahead of everyone else that even his Celtic teammate is languishing a little in the running.

How many more times must we see these ludicrous comparisons? How many more times must the media embarrass itself by trying to compare apples and oranges? They do this all the time with players from Ibrox.

There have been all sorts of barmy comparisons. I saw one—not even in the Record—which tried to compare Diomande with Zinedine Zidane this week. I mean, that is so stupid I wasn’t even going to mention it in an article. It’s so outlandish, so outrageous, that it should be a mortifying comparison for anyone to make. We’re talking about a player in the SPFL—not even performing that well—being likened to one of the greatest footballers of all time. It’s idiotic.

But this is the fantasy world some people inhabit, so it’s no surprise to see comparisons between Scotland’s outstanding footballer right now and a guy who is so disliked by his own fans that they’d have driven him to the airport themselves just to get rid of him in the last transfer window.

They tend to go overboard over there when a player has a couple of good games in a row. When a player is on a decent scoring run, you only have to look at the headlines that surrounded Igamane earlier in the season to see how crazy they get. And this isn’t the first time a striker from that club has been compared to a Celtic player in a way that makes our fans laugh out loud.

Even if you were only looking at goal stats, you’d have to acknowledge that Maeda has played most of the season out wide and is still up there competing with Dessers. In the league, there’s only one goal between them, with Maeda in front.

Dundee United’s Dalby is one ahead of Maeda, and Dessers finds himself battling it out with St Mirren’s Murray. Maybe some of the people pushing this nonsense would like to see comparisons between those guys and Maeda as well?

Oh, but that would be too stupid, wouldn’t it?

Well it would be no less stupid than this rubbish is.

But we’re not just talking about goals, and we all know it. We’re talking about overall contribution. And there’s probably no more effective player in the country than Maeda when it comes to lifting a team and influencing performances. That’s reflected in the fact that, guess who leads the league in assists? That’s right—Maeda, with seven. He’s joined on that number by Nicolas Kühn and Alistair Johnston.

And yes, Dessers has scored in Europe. Guess what? So has Maeda—including against Dortmund and Bayern. And that’s before you even consider that he was doing it in a much tougher competition.

This is one of those arguments that you can knock down just by looking at the numbers. Maeda is ahead in league goals. He’s ahead in assists. That should be the end of the argument if we’re talking in purely statistical terms.

But let’s be honest—it’s not just about numbers. Anyone with working eyes can see who the better player is. Vastly better. It’s not even close. It’s not even a debate among reasonable, rational people.

But of course, we’re dealing with the Scottish media and the Ibrox cheerleading section, who are desperate for anything to cling to—any delusion that lets them believe they have special players too.

Let’s also not forget that they need to sell players this summer before they can spend, regardless of whether a takeover happens or not. That’s just a fact of life.

Their so-called “transfer trading strategy” depends on getting bodies out the door. As I said in a piece yesterday, they aren’t going to move on any of their so-called “superstars in the making.”

Take Igamane, for example—he’s hardly getting a game at the moment, with Dessers keeping him out of the side.

And we all know Dessers isn’t fetching an eight-figure sum. That’s just laughable. We know that because they already tried to sell him for that. When there were no takers, they halved the asking price. When that didn’t work, they halved it again. You could pick him up for £2.5–3 million. And everyone knows it.

Now, what would it cost to sign Maeda from Celtic?

Ten times that? Easily. And we would get that money for him—everyone knows that, too. If a bid comes in for Maeda in the summer, it’ll be in that range. Otherwise, Celtic won’t even answer the phone.

That’s the difference. Over at Ibrox, they spent most of last summer calling around, begging clubs to take their poor-quality players. Dessers included. In fact, Dessers especially.

No, I don’t feel this was a necessary article. But it was one I wanted to write. It was a little bit of anger and frustration I needed to get off my chest. And as ever, thanks for putting up with it.

I bet I’m not alone, though. I bet a lot of you read that Record piece and wanted to scream about how ridiculous it was.

Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images

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