Zion Suzuki - Goalkeeper

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League wouldn't worry me one bit for a goalkeeping talent. If he was a 20 years old Midfield player in the J League I'd be more reticent.

Most of the fundamentals are the same. You don't really face different shots just because you're in the J League. So you can assess handling and shot stopping very well. You can assess distribution very well, with a slight asterisk that they need to do things a tad quicker in the PL. But it's not so dramatic as the time and space in midfield.

It's mainly intricacies around set pieces and dealing with the pressure and expectation of a big club. Most of the core goalkeeping skills shouldn't be too bad to assess. So if you have a 20 years old talent I wouldn't be too worried if they're playing in Japan or Slovakia for a keeper.
 
glasgow 21 said:
In relation to our joke scouting system we hear rumours that we have been following him for years ? I really give up. 8 appearances in 2 years ? Is this actually true we are in for him. What the connection who's nephew/ cousin is he ? .
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The connection is United's Japanese scout, Kei Tamura who joined the club in 2016 from Urawa Red Diamonds.
 
Would he want to become a no.2 at 20 years old?

Not going to be good for his development, is it?
 
jderbyshire said:
Would he want to become a no.2 at 20 years old?

Not going to be good for his development, is it?
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He needs regular games at his age so a move to Belgium could well be for the best. And Luckhurst in his piece today has confirmed our interest.

Samuel Luckhurst: "Onana is United's principal target to replace the out-of-contract David de Gea, while the club have held talks with the agent of Urawa Red Diamonds and Japan Under-21 goalie Zion Suzuki. United have not made an offer for the 20-year-old Suzuki."

"An industry source says Suzuki is regarded as a top talent and had been looking to move to a team in Belgium."

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ews/man-united-onana-suzuki-transfer-27274887
 
jderbyshire said:
Would he want to become a no.2 at 20 years old?

Not going to be good for his development, is it?
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He's a number 2 at Urawa seemingly. If he does join then you would imagine that the plan would be for him to be involved in the U23s or go out on loan.
 
scream said:
I'd say, for a keeper, its probably the best age.
I don't think goalies approach their prime until late 20s.
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Yeah and while this is definitely not always the case with every player and scenario, I'm confident he would gain so much even just by training with our first team, compared to his current situation.
 
This would be a great second goalkeeper option. If we get this guy and Onana I'd be very happy, but he is far too young and inexperienced to be our number 1. Aside from only having played in thr J-league, the pressure of being between the sticks at Man Utd is immense. I doubt there is another position ubject to more scrutiny and pressure. De Gea was one of the best shot stoppers in the world, and would constantly get criticised for minor mistakes. That is far too much pressure to put on a 20 year old with little to no experience with being in the limelight.
 
Great eventual back-up to Onana because he has all the right potential to be a very similar sort of keeper. Likes to sweep, lovely distribution.

I expect first we'd give him a year in the U21s if not a year's loan. He's had very little competitive football and not at a high level.

This is a type of acquisition we should be making every season, though.
 
Hehe wtf.

I wonder, If Messi or Maradonna were named 'Zion Suzuki' ,
If anyone could talk about them as the best ever with a straight face.

The answer should be yes, but it doesn't sit right... right?
 
Pexbo said:
Caceido only played 31 games before his move to Brighton.

This is from the Caceido thread:



Would you rather we didn’t pay £5m for him now and waited until he played a few seasons for a club like RBL, Atalanta or Fulham and then paid £60m?
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for the sake of the Caf, yes. We will always need something to complain about
 
Adnan said:
The connection is United's Japanese scout, Kei Tamura who joined the club in 2016 from Urawa Red Diamonds.
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He must be great. Sure he must have tipped of United about Kim Min-jae before now if he is Man United's hot man hunting in that area he quotes "I am looking hard for the second Park Ji-sung and the successor to Kagawa"
 
Laurencio said:
This would be a great second goalkeeper option. If we get this guy and Onana I'd be very happy, but he is far too young and inexperienced to be our number 1. Aside from only having played in thr J-league, the pressure of being between the sticks at Man Utd is immense. I doubt there is another position ubject to more scrutiny and pressure. De Gea was one of the best shot stoppers in the world, and would constantly get criticised for minor mistakes. That is far too much pressure to put on a 20 year old with little to no experience with being in the limelight.
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What about Kovar ?
 
I like this news, it actually shows some kind of thinking behind squad rotation and development.. too often we’ve had to completely change how we play because we have to bring a completely different type of player on for someone going off injured or just needing rest
 
glasgow 21 said:
He must be great. Sure he must have tipped of United about Kim Min-jae before now if he is Man United's hot man hunting in that area he quotes "I am looking hard for the second Park Ji-sung and the successor to Kagawa"
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The issue was that there wasn't a clear alignment between the scouts on the ground, the head scouts and the first team managers who had their personal scouts. Murtough brought in the scouts in 2016 but Woodward put Bout and Lawlor in charge of those scouts at first team level and Murtough was in charge of the scouts at youth level.

So for recommendations to get through to the top. The heads of scouting would need to agree with the scouts below them and the likes of Bout and Lawlor seem to have disagreements on which players should be signed. Murtough has now replaced Bout and Lawlor with Mayorga and Wells and hopefully we should see a clear line of communication along with a aligned approach to scouting. Because contrary what people say, Man Utd have a very strong scouting set up. David Harrison who is the head of recruitment at youth level is among the very best scouts in his field and he was at City from 2009 to 2017 and a lot of the players they've sold over the years including the ones this transfer window are signings that were made by the current Man Utd head of youth recruitment David Harrison. Dan Ashworth at Newcastle made a attempt to whisk him away but we seem to have held on to him.

Kim was a player that was being watched by United years ago via Kei Tamura in Japan.

 
Pexbo said:
Caceido only played 31 games before his move to Brighton.

This is from the Caceido thread:



Would you rather we didn’t pay £5m for him now and waited until he played a few seasons for a club like RBL, Atalanta or Fulham and then paid £60m?
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Fair enough, if you think having him as Gk backup would turn this 20 y.o. Gk into world class like Caicedo.

Usually, I don't mind us taking a punt 5m here and there. It's just if true the money is tight, i'd prefer us to be more prudent. But it's probably not as big problem for United as I thought.
 
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Tom Van Persie said:
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Young and can have future infront of him but I don't see anything extra here. Dosen't strike me as someone commanding his area and I thought he had hard time catching balls shen making saves. Lot of saves just bounced out again.
 
Saw some scouting report that had his handling at a 5 out of 10. I’ve never watched anything on him but surely that’s a rating reserved for a semi decent Sunday league keeper who was fished out the casino at 6 am before playing at 10?
 
Destined to be one of the greats of the game... nah I've no idea what he's like but it would be cool if our scouts found some great talents in these less well-scouted leagues. Name is fire
 
Andersons Dietician said:
Saw some scouting report that had his handling at a 5 out of 10. I’ve never watched anything on him but surely that’s a rating reserved for a semi decent Sunday league keeper who was fished out the casino at 6 am before playing at 10?
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I love how people completely downplay and disregard talents of professional footballers :lol:

Most of our squad’s deadwood are league 1 or 2 players and this guy is a sunday league player. When in reality all these guys would walk the leagues they’re supposedly “good for”
 
Andersons Dietician said:
Saw some scouting report that had his handling at a 5 out of 10. I’ve never watched anything on him but surely that’s a rating reserved for a semi decent Sunday league keeper who was fished out the casino at 6 am before playing at 10?
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Handling is something that can be worked on though. Apparently he's very good with the ball at his feet, which is something very hard to teach GKs. Just look at our own DDG...

I can see why the club are trying to find a young GK like this. Even if he's never good enough to be #1, he'll likely make a much more effective #2 at some point than having a sort of decent GK whose shite with his feet as #2. You have to completely change how you play then every time that guy comes in, whereas with someone who's strengths are similar to those as Onana the game plan doesn't change so much.

Still, this link isn't the strongest, so probably won't happen.
 
If we sign him I hope we write a song for him to the tune of I Am Damo Suzuki by the Fall.
 
The key thing is signing that extra body along with Onana so both De Gea and Henderson can leave. Beyond that I really find it hard to care how good our second choice GK is.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
We have. But, Jesus Christ, I swear our managers should listen more to scouts like him in order to unearth East Asian gems on the cheap like Celtic have done under Ange Postecoglou's tenure.
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I imagine a big part of that is the Glazers. Some of these 'gems' would probably require a bit more investment than signing the odd 16 yr old for the academy. They seem to not appreciate that kind of signing.

It is encouraging to see we were aware of someone like Kim back when he was 22 playing in the K league, but it's equally frustrating that we didn't act on that, sign him, and then loan him to a club in the Netherlands or something for a season or two until he was ready to be part of the squad. It's something we should try and do a bit more often, but that long term planning hasn't been in place since very recently.

Having said that, Kim's season at Napoli was his only season in a top league so far, so he's a bit of a late bloomer in many respects. He was still playing in China a couple of years ago. Might just be that he was never considered good enough before now. Scouting players and identifying talent isn't always that straightforward.
 
Yup. My only doubt is the players he faces in the J-League are smaller than in the EPL. So not sure about him handling the physicality. But as a no. 2, why not?
 
It would make sense if we also buy onana, what would be the point of buying onana to help play a certain way from out fron the back but then have a number 2 that can't replicate playing the same way from the back and from the looks of things this guy has the fundamentals to step in as cover for onana without disrupting the playing style
 
Not sure why everyone is assuming a 20 year old is coming in as a No 2. He's as likely to go in the talent pool with Kovar and Vitek and go out on loan.
 
Hope we buy him but you do not keep a 20-year-old as No.2. He needs to play.
 
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