CELTIC PLAYER OF THE YEAR? I SAY THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Celtic today announced the nominations for the player of the year awards,
The winners will be crowned in a ceremony set for the evening of May 4th.
With a bit of luck, we’ll also be celebrating a victory over Rangers at Ibrox earlier that day too.
You can see the full list of nominees on the Celtic Website.
In the meantime though, I thought I would share my picks with you all, to get the conversation going.
Daizen Maeda is a Standout For Celtic Player of the Year
The awards page gives supporters 5 categories to vote on.
Those are men’s player of the year, men’s goal of the season, women’s player of the year, women’s goal of the season and men’s young player of the year.
So, let’s go through my choices for each one.
Celtic Player of the Year: Daizen Maeda
The headline already gave it away, but I think we all knew who I was going to choose for this one. Maeda has been outstanding all season.
However, he has particular strength of character to step up and assume the mantle of Celtic’s man goal threat following the unexpected departure of Kyogo Furuhashi.
I always knew Daizen had it in him to be our main striker, and I must confess to certain degree of personal smugness at seeing him finally realize his potential.
A special mention however, must also go to Kasper Schmeichel.
Until Daizen pulled away into a league of his own from the new year onwards I was 50/50 on which of these two players should get the award.
Joe Hart was a hero, a leader and a superb goalkeeper. He left huge gloves to fill, both figuratively and literally.
However, Kasper Schmeichel has risen to the challenge and then some. He made a number of superb saves at crucial points for Celtic throughout this season.
We can also see, in the recent emergence of Viljami Sinisalo, the importance of having a presence like Schmeichel on the training ground.
His experience and his knowledge of the game has clearly made Sinisalo a better keeper and in my opinion a future Celtic number one.
Men’s Goal of the Season: Cameron Carter-Vickers vs Kilmarnock
Ok, I’ll admit there might be some recency bias in this one, but CCV’s long range effort against Kilmarnock was nothing short of stunning.
Also, he scored it less than 24 hours after I wrote a blog criticizing his comments at the previous days press conference.
I like to think he read it and I made the American center back angry. He then took that anger out with his rasping shot the next day.
You’re welcome big man!
I jest, but in all seriousness, it was an absolute beauty of a goal.
However, it’s a testament to Celtic’s play this season that there is such a variety of goals and goal scorers to choose from this year.
Women’s player of the year: Saoirse Noonan
It’s been a tough season for Celtic women.
After clinching the title in the most dramatic of circumstances last season, they currently in 5th place after loosing several key members of the squad.
However, Noonan has been a consistent performer, with some important goals and excellent link up play in attack. I hope Celtic can hold onto her for next season.
Women’s Goal of the Season: Saoirse Noonan vs Montrose
You really need to look this goal up and see it for yourselves.
It was an absolute beauty. Noonan plays keepy-uppy on the edge of the area before unleashing an unstoppable bullet of a volley into the top corner. Superb stuff.
Young Player of the Year: Hyun-Jun Yang
I’ll be honest, I was one of many people who expected Yang to depart Celtic in the winter transfer window.
He hadn’t really done much up until that point. However, from early 2025 onwards he’s consistently been impressive whenever called upon.
Like many of you, I love a good redemption story, and Yang’s efforts in resurrecting his Celtic career deserve praise.
I still don’t know if he’ll make it at Celtic long term, but he showed tremendous character to come back into the team and make his mark like he did.
I always believed there was a player in there, and I hope he can gone to prove me right in the years ahead.
Well, that’s my picks, but I’d love to know what you all think. I also encourage you all to visit the voting page on Celtic’s website and check out the goal of the season nominations for yourselves.
Whoever wins, I think we can all agree that we are lucky to have so many talented players at our club.