‘Blocked everything’: Why £4m man turned down Nottingham Forest move

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Sint Triuden Yuma Suzuki rejected a move to Championship side Nottingham Forest during the summer transfer window as he only wanted to join a ‘top league, as reported by Sport Magazine. 

Forest fans have seen enough false dawns to last a lifetime but there is no getting away from the fact that, since replacing Chris Hughton with former Swansea City coach Steve Cooper, pessimism has turned to positivity on the City Ground terraces.

A total of seven points out of a potential nine have certainly helped, with Cooper introducing a more flexible, free-flowing and forward-thinking style of football, at least in comparison to Hughton’s pragmatic, safety-first approach.

The mercurial Lewis Grabban looks revitalised too, scoring in his last two games prior to the October international break. 

Nottingham Forest missed out on a whole host of strikers during the off-season, Croatia U21 international Sandro Kulenovic and the agent of Spezia forward M’Bala Nzola confirming that they turned down approaches from the two-time European champions while Suzuki snubbed their advances too.

But if Grabban can maintain his recent form, if Lyle Taylor can build on a lively cameo appearance in the 3-0 win at Birmingham City, there’s no reason why Forest cannot scale the Championship table and swap a relegation battle for an unexpected play-off push. 

Could Yuma Suzuki still join Nottingham Forest in January?

“Yuma blocked everything. The club was told that he preferred to move to a top league,” explained Anderlecht sporting director Peter Verbeke, who tried and failed to sign the Jupiler League hot shot over the summer. 

Forest, like Anderlecht, failed with an approach for the Japanese goal-machine before September’s transfer deadline (Voetbal24).

Sint Triuden would be willing to cash in on the £4 million-rated Suzuki in January but, given that he has already turned down a move to the Championship once, it seems that Forest would be wasting their time knocking on his door again.