Celtic Wins Premiership and Cup Double, Set for Summer Rebuild

On Saturday afternoon, Celtic secured a Premiership and Cup double as they defeated Neil Lennon’s Dunfermline 3-1 at Hampden Park.

However, it has still not been a convincing season. The title was won in dramatic fashion on the final day, the Scottish League Cup final was lost to St. Mirren, and there was the embarrassing defeat to Kairat in the UEFA Champions League play-off, before a pretty lifeless Europa League exit to VfB Stuttgart.

Therefore, you would imagine there will be quite the rebuild at Celtic Park this summer. And any rebuild includes a number of departures.

Well, it is being reported by Stephen McGowan via Everything Celtic that as many as five players are expected to leave. Indeed, as he reports that Daizen Maeda, Arne Engels, Reo Hatate, Kasper Schmeichel, and Paulo Bernaro are set to leave the club this summer.

It has not been lost on the Celtic faithful that Maeda has seemed very emotional recently. Now, you could argue it has been quite an emotional end to the season in general, but many have suggested he has said his goodbye to the fans in the past couple of weeks, but we’ll see. He is off to Japan for the World Cup before anything is likely to be sorted.