Nottingham Forest failed with a last-minute bid to bring Yuma Suzuki to the City Ground on Tuesday evening.
What’s the talk?
That’s according to a claim made by Sacha Tavolieri, with the Belgian journalist revealing in a post on Twitter that, despite Sint-Truidense accepting the Reds’ offer for the centre-forward, the 25-year-old rejected a switch to the Championship side with just hours remaining of the summer transfer window.
The journalist had previously reported that Club Brugge had also offered €3.5m (£3m) plus €1m (£850k) in add-ons for the Japanese forward, while Porto, Cagliari, Fenerbahce and Schalke were also thought to be in discussions with the Jupiler Pro League for the striker – who ultimately remained at Sint-Truiden.
Murphy will be gutted
With Nottingham Forest’s search for a centre-forward having been well documented this summer, the fact that Dane Murphy failed in his efforts to get a deal over the line for Suzuki in the closing stages of the transfer window will have undoubtedly left the CEO gutted.
Indeed, the £3.15m-rated man certainly would have appeared to be an excellent signing for the Championship strugglers, as, over his 34 Jupiler Pro League appearances last season, the Sint-Truiden striker scored 17 goals, registered three assists and created five big chances for his teammates, as well as taking an average of two shots and making 0.7 key passes per game.
These returns saw the €6.5k-per-week (£5.5k-per-week) centre-forward average a highly impressive seasonal SofaScore match rating of 7.11, ranking him as Bernd Hollerbach’s joint third-best performer in the top flight of Belgian football.
As such, considering the fact that Lewis Grabban and Lyle Taylor have so far scored just one Championship goal between them this season, the addition of Suzuki would certainly have appeared to provide Hughton with a considerable boost at a time when the 62-year-old desperately needs one – with his Forest side currently being rooted to the foot of the second tier table after five games played.
In other news: NFFC confirm development on “exceptional” £1.8m-rated dynamo, Hughton will be buzzing
