“I'M not a good player,” Daizen Maeda once famously said, “So I have to work hard all the time to be a good player.”

It turns out that one thing has led to the other. For by working relentlessly on the field of play, and off it in training to improve his once raw technique, the Japanese attacker has certainly convinced the Celtic supporters of his worthiness to wear the jersey.

Does he possess the technical ability, deft touches and close control of a top-level attacker, such as compatriot Kyogo? Not quite yet. Not many in Scotland do. He has more than made up for that though with his astonishing work-rate, his clever movement, and let’s not forget, his increasingly apparent nose for goal.

Maeda now has three goals in his last five matches, taking his tally to seven in total since his January arrival at Celtic. His contribution in that recent spell though goes far beyond those goals, as Saturday’s man-of-the-match award - despite bagging ‘just’ the one of Celtic’s seven strikes against St Johnstone - testifies.

It is hard to forget that it wasn’t so long ago that Maeda was being publicly defended by his manager, Ange Postecoglou, when his blistering start to his Celtic career tailed off a little in the weeks that followed.

A goal just minutes into his debut against Hibernian at Celtic Park had supporters salivating, particularly as the need to fill a Kyogo-shaped hole at the sharp end of the Celtic attack was a pressing one at that particular time.

A trip to Japan followed for some crucial World Cup qualifiers, and upon his return, the spark didn’t quite seem to be there for a short spell, leaving some fans concerned that he wasn’t the man to fill Kyogo’s boots after all. The thing is, he would never claim to be, and now he is showing the distinct qualities of his own that have made him such a great fit for Celtic, and for Postecoglou’s style of play.

The 23 goals he bagged for Yokohama F. Marinos last season, incidentally, would suggest that the current uptick in his scoring rate is a return to the mean, rather than a purple patch, and it was his mini drought of just a few weeks ago that was in fact out of character.

“People look for different things, but I know what I get from Daizen and why I brought him to this club,” Postecoglou said, just as Maeda’s critics began to circle following the goalless draw at St Mirren, where he played through the middle of the attack.

“A lot of people don’t see the work he does,” he continued. “The reason St Mirren got nowhere near our penalty box was because Daizen was constantly pressuring their goalkeeper who is great with his feet.

“Every player has a role. Sometimes you don’t get all the headlines, but within the four walls at Celtic Park, he gets his due recognition.”

His willingness to be the epitome of the footballing cliché of a player who ‘defends from the front’ though may well have resulted in Maeda being labelled as more of a defensive asset, rather than an attacking one. A workhorse, perhaps. Or worse, a headless chicken.

As the weeks have progressed though, he has shown that it is his intelligence of movement – both when Celtic are in possession and when they are not – that is such a huge asset to his team in both defensive and offensive situations.

When the opposition have the ball, Maeda is not running for running’s sake. Rather, he shows remarkable prescience of when precisely to press and harry defenders, married to an appreciation of potential passing lanes and an ability to cut them off.

This has been clearly evident since at least the away game at Livingston, where his headed goal was important, but his suffocation of the Livingston defenders as they attempted to play accurate long balls forward was equally as vital.

At Ibrox in the win over Rangers, he displayed those same attributes, making life uncomfortable for the home defenders time and time again as he hounded them like some rabid Duracell bunny.

When Celtic do have the ball, he may not be able to offer the same target through the middle as the likes of Giorgos Giakoumakis, or play the same sort of give-and-go’s that Kyogo causes havoc with, but given the opposition set-ups that Celtic come up against more often than not in domestic competition, his movement can be just as effective.

When Celtic have the ball, particularly in the midfield area where the full-backs often pop up in the number 10 position, Maeda’s first thought is to bomb forward.

It is a simple concept, but few players time can time these runs in behind as intelligently as Maeda is currently demonstrating, and the net result is that the opposition – no matter how compact the set-up - instantly become stretched.

Even if Maeda ultimately doesn’t end up as the target of the forward pass, though he often does, he has at the very least created space for his teammates to operate in.

So, it appears that in the case of Maeda, Postecoglou – as it seems to be being said with increasing regularity these days - may have been right after all.

“We have to be careful about just saying ‘four Japanese players’,” Postecoglou said upon the arrival of Maeda, along with fellow January arrivals Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi.

“These are four individuals, they are totally different people. If you ever get the chance to meet them you will see they are totally different people, totally different kinds of players.”

So, no, Daizen Maeda is not Kyogo. But then, the Celtic attack is all the richer, and all the more potent, for that.