Maeda as difficult for Celtic to replace as Kyogo - Allan

Celtic will find it as difficult to replace Daizen Maeda this summer as they did Japan team-mate Kyogo Furuhashi 18 months ago, according to former midfielder Scott Allan. Reports claim Ipswich Town, promoted to the Premier League, have agreed a deal in principle with Celtic to sign 28-year-old forward Maeda for an initial £8m fee that could rise to £10m with add-ons. BBC pundit and former Celtic striker Chris Sutton said on X: "Maeda is worth much more than £10m and will find himself playing Championship football the following season. Bad deal for Celtic and Maeda." But Allan told the BBC Scottish Football Podcast : "When they're in the last year of their contract, it's very hard to demand a lot more than that, especially when the player had already touched on last year that he was wanting to move. "If Daizan Maeda has two, three years left his contract, I think you get substantially more than than £10m." Allan, though, suggests Celtic would be losing one of the key players who secured another league title last season through his "intensity" and "running power". "Most importantly, the last two seasons he's added a lot of goals to his game and none more so than after the [league] split last season, when he really came alive and for me he was a catalyst to getting Celtic over a line," he said. "So he is a huge loss. He's one of the players that's going to be really hard to replace for Celtic. "They didn't do it with Kyogo and the goals and the movement that he had up front. And I think they will really struggle to replace Maeda's attributes as well."