The game-changing double Celtic transfer deal that could supercharge West Ham this summer

Graham Potter has often taken his time to get up to speed when he takes charge at a new club, but his slow start at West Ham United has caused some concern among supporters. Certainly, he can’t afford a bad summer as he works to shape his team to his tactical needs.

The Hammers have already started making their moves ahead of the next transfer window, announcing that Danny Ings, Vladimír Coufal, Aaron Creswell and Łukasz Fabiański will all leave the club when their contracts expire at the end of the campaign – but the players they bring in to freshen the squad up will perhaps have more of an impact, and reports suggest that West Ham’s transfer team are already lining up a double deal which could help to turn things around next season.

The double Celtic deal West Ham are reportedly considering

A series of recent reports suggest that West Ham are attempting to complete the signing of not one, but two players for Scottish Premiership champions Celtic – one of which has been many months in the making.

Back in the winter transfer market, the Hammers attempted to sign Scotland Under-19 international forward Daniel Cummings, regarded as one of the brightest prospects to emerge from Celtic’s academy in some years. An attempt to buy him outright for £500,000 failed, but with Cummings’ contract at Parkhead running down, he is set to be available on a free transfer at the end of June.

Celtic’s attempts to keep hold of Cummings seem set to fail. Negotiations over a new deal stalled out and some sources have reported that the 19-year-old has already signed a pre-contract agreement with West Ham. Given his age, the Hammers will be forced to pay a fee, to be determined at a tribunal, but that doesn’t seem set to dissuade them from completing the deal.

Barring late surprises, that’s a transfer that should get over the line and give Potter a bright young prospect to mould – but if a recent story from Caught Offside is correct, Brendan Rodgers will be fielding more calls from the London Stadium’s transfer team over the coming months.

It’s claimed that West Ham are among several sides interested in signing 27-year-old Japanese midfielder Daizen Maeda off the back of a remarkable season in which the winger has so far scored no fewer than 33 goals in all competitions.

Celtic have reportedly slapped a £25m price tag on a player who would either compete with Mohammed Kudus on the left flank or replace him should rumours linking Kudus with a move to Saudi Arabia be proven correct – and a fee that’s relatively affordable by Premier League standards means that plenty of clubs south of the border seem to be keen.

Fulham, Crystal Palace, Brentford and newly-promoted Leeds United have all been connected with a bid, but West Ham seem to be firmly among the contenders as they look to revitalise an attack which has only managed 19 goals in their 17 matches under Potter. If he can bring his present form from Glasgow to London, then £25m could prove a small price to pay.

How Daniel Cummings and Daizen Maeda could help West Ham next season

While some stories suggest that West Ham plan to include Cummings in the first team from the start, it’s fair to say that he’s still one for the future – for all the warm reviews that he has drawn in Scotland, he has only made one professional appearance at club level, as a substitute against Aston Villa in the Champions League.

Clearly, it’s not reasonable to expect Cummings to provide an instant upturn in West Ham’s fortunes up front despite an impressive goal-scoring record at youth level which has included 29 goals in 35 games for Celtic’s Under-19 and B teams this season.

Maeda, on the other hand, would be signed with the hope of an instant impact – the question is whether he can maintain the exceptional form in front of goal that has made him such an in-demand player. That isn’t certain, even beyond the usual caveat about the change in difficulty level between the Scottish and English first divisions. Maeda’s improvement in front of goal has been sharp and startling.

The 33 club goals he has managed this season is far more than he has scored in his previous three campaigns with Celtic, in which he scored a sum total of 29 goals in 79 matches. Not a poor return, by any means, but his form over several seasons did not presage his current lethal run in front of goal.

His four goals in 23 caps for Japan – including the opener in an eventual penalty shootout defeat to Croatia in the last 16 of the 2022 World Cup – also suggest that he may not be able to promise to sustain such an extraordinary rate of return.

In previous seasons, Maeda has scored at a rate roughly commensurate with the quality of chances he’s received – eight goals from 7.62xG in the 2021/22 Scottish Premiership season, for instance, and six from 8.58xG last year. This time around, the numbers have risen remarkably to 16 goals from just 10.3xG.

The question, then, is whether the Osaka-born winger has found another gear and improved the quality of his finishing and decision-making inside the box (and all of his goals this past year have been scored from within the box), or whether he has simply hit a purple patch that he won’t be able to keep up.

That’s a risk West Ham may be prepared to take given the potential reward of an inside forward who is also a dangerous ball-carrier who has proven highly productive, especially when cutting back into the penalty area from wide areas both on and off the ball. He also boasts an impeccable work rate and forces an impressive number of turnovers pressing out of possession and tracking back to regain the ball. Even if he doesn’t score quite so many at the London Stadium, he should make the hard yards.

Maeda is less of a sure thing than Kudus, but if he can keep up his form in front of goal then he could make an otherwise mediocre attack far more threatening – and Cummings has the potential to be a major contributor in years to come, even if he isn’t the starting central striker that Potter needs rather urgently this summer.

As for whether West Ham take the bet on Maeda (or whether they even win the battle if they do), we will find out before too long. It’s nearly time for David Sullivan to pick up his phone and start carving out some deals – and if he makes the right calls, then his manager might find life a little easier in his first full season in East London.