Pundit Jermaine Jenas was left eating his words following Daizen Maeda 's goal for Japan - after suggesting he works too hard and needs to focus on scoring.
Maeda has been an important player for Celtic since joining 12 months ago but his poor chance conversion rate has come into question time and again. He missed big chances against Real Madrid and RB Leipzig and Ange Postecoglou admitted he has to do better in front of goal.
Despite scoring just four times this season he was picked by Hajime Moriyasu for the World Cup while his teammates Kyogo and Reo Hatate were surprisingly left behind. He's started three of their four games so far and was in the starting XI for their last 16 clash with Croatia. Maeda a great headed chance after a cross from Yuto Nagatomo but covered plenty of ground to justify his place in the team and Jenas, speaking on commentary for the BBC in the first half, said: "It's funny with Maeda. When you see his movement like that, you wonder why the goals don't come freely. It was really sharp movement in the box.
"You can see why Maeda's in the team. He drops back in a lot and works really hard, but what is it at the expense of? When Nagatomo gets the ball there and gets his head up, there's not really a presence in the box, somebody there to score the goals. But there's no doubt he works his socks off for the team.
"Strikers are selfish, they have to be. Their job is to score goals, not to run around and be doing midfielders' jobs. I want my strikers to be up there sticking the ball in the back of the net."
It was a classic case of commentator's curse though as just minutes later he struck the opening goal. Jenas said: "He's there, he's alive, he's waiting for it to drop and he sticks it into the back of the net. Right place, right time for Maeda. He's getting a lot of love from the players for all the hard work he's put in and he's got the goal as a reward."
He later added after Maeda was subbed off: "He was really, really good today. He caused a lot of problems, particularly in the first half when he got himself his goal."
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