Expert Pundit Hits Out at Maeda Criticism

J-League expert and football analyst Sam Robson has come out in defence of Celtic striker Daizen Maeda after he failed to make his mark during the draw against Hibernian.

The Hoops player out a 0-0 draw in Edinburgh with nobody in the team covering themselves with glory.

On various online platforms; football phone ins etc. Maeda has been the source of much debate. A lot of fans don’t think he’s doing enough at the moment.

Data analyst Sam Robson offered some perspective and a strong defence of the Celtic striker: Maeda copping a lot of stick recently, and I don’t think he’s been great by any means, but Celtic are playing him as a centre forward and just lumping aimless crosses into the box. What is he expected to do with that?

‘His main threat is clearly running in behind, but is getting very few through balls to run onto, and with opposition defences set very deep, space in behind is limited so Celtic need to get to the by-line and cut it back more, actually picking him out.

‘And this is without the caveat that he and Hatate have just played full seasons in high intensity pressing systems and have had to come in mid-season to another high intensity system having had just a few weeks off.’

Maeda scored against Hibernian in his debut back in January. The whole team has cooled off since then. There’s a lot of truth in what Sam is saying here and the fans who want to write any player off who just came in last month need to have a word with themselves.

We can be too quick to pass judgement – especially after a poor result.

The Japanese star has many positive traits but the bhoys needs to help him out too.

Jota especially was very poor at Easter Road but has managed to duck a lot of criticism because of his exploits earlier this season.

The team are feeling a bit stale after a blistering start to 2022. We can only hope Daizen and the rest of the bhoys are up for the challenge.