Commeth the hour, commeth Maeda. Celtic’s Samurai is back right on time.

The English proverb says, “Cometh the hour, cometh the man.” A few months ago, when people were saying that neither Maeda nor Hatate should play for the team again, I said I felt both of them still had big roles to play this season. I said we would see them make a difference before it was done.

Hatate has already done his bit. His performance and goal at Ibrox mattered enormously, and he has been a crucial player in other major games. He will find his way back into this team before the season is done.

But I always suspected it would be Maeda who made the real difference.

Way back, in the strange sense of time that exists around this guy, when he had only just signed for the club and played maybe a dozen games, he had already shown us the skill set he brought to the table. I nicknamed him Danger Mouse because they have the same initials, because he is small but strong, and because the cartoon theme seemed to sum up our Japanese star.

He’s the strongest, he’s the quickest, he’s the best.

For a long time, Danger Mouse was our danger man. He is the reason Tavernier will leave at the end of the season with a paltry handful of medals and post-traumatic stress disorder.

I wonder if there is one last awful memory left for the Ibrox captain to add to his collection of bad Maeda moments.

It isn’t just that Maeda has scored a few goals in the last couple of games. It is that his whole performance level has gone up several notches.

This is what happens when the chips are down. This is what happens when you need someone to step up.

Someone who can carry the burden of getting a team over the line.

This is when you find out who the real heroes are.

It doesn’t surprise me that Maeda has emerged as the crucial cog in the wheel.

At a time when I’m complaining about players getting new deals, he is the guy I would have liked to see get one. Under a different manager and in a different system, we might have seen Maeda at his best again next season.

But I suspect he has his heart set on a move. What he does between now and the end of the season will determine the kind of fee we get, along with the kind of World Cup he has. I will be watching that with great interest, of course, as I’m sure will scouts from all over the planet.

He is definitely the player you would want to keep here for another couple of years if possible.

It probably isn’t possible.

It is probably right that he goes now, especially if he can win us another championship before he departs. If he does that, he leaves as a genuine Celtic legend. A player it has been a privilege to watch over these last few years.

He is one of my favourite Celtic players of all time.

I have never seen a player with so much natural energy. That burst of pace is extraordinary. Although he is not a natural striker, he knows how to find the net. That makes his early-season form almost inexplicable when you look at the composed finishes yesterday.

In the aftermath of the game, the manager praised him fulsomely, and Maeda himself promised there is more to come.

That is a tantalising idea.

Four league games and a cup final left to go. How many goals might we see from this guy? How important might they be?

If he is on form, our chances of winning this title have been elevated enormously. If he is back to anything like his best, we really are in with a shout. This is what we have been missing: someone capable of keeping a cool head and getting it done.

That is why our rivals will have watched events yesterday with some disquiet.

A fully fit, fully functioning, fully on-point Daizen Maeda is a potent weapon for Celtic to wield. It has come not a moment too soon.

I said yesterday, in my piece before the game, that whatever people have done up until now is no longer what matters. We are here now. We are in the home straight, knowing what we have to do.

The players who step up now, in this moment, are the ones history will remember.

I always had a sneaky feeling Maeda was going to be the main one.

It was excellent to see him yesterday. Aggressive. Alive. Buzzing. Up for it.

It wasn’t just the goals. It was the whole performance. The way he covered every blade of grass and put their defence and their goalkeeper under pressure all the time. The way he scored one playing through the middle, then scored another cutting in from the left.

All the pieces of his game fitted together yesterday.

So here we are now, looking forward and not back.

If these are the last games we are going to see Daizen Maeda play in a Celtic strip, then it is fitting that they should be good ones. Not just games that remind us of what we’ve got, but games that remind us of what we’ve had this whole time.

Cometh the hour, cometh the danger man.

He’s the strongest, he’s the quickest, he’s the best.

Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.