Kuryu Matsuki

[Charlie Wayman]

6 hours ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

With game time, and support and instructions from others, he's improving. 

He's bulked up a bit and had a bit of bite to go with his industry against Wrexham. While Bree supports him, he's able to track and attack elsewhere. Not in the way Fellows would. But then, Matsuki looks to be very useful centrally, and from corners.

….and scores goals!

[benjii]

Apart from THAT miss, I thought he was excellent and showed he is a genuine option in the 'hole' should Azaz be unavailable. 

He has the potential of a really good player.

[SuperSAINT]

4 minutes ago, benjii said:

Apart from THAT miss, I thought he was excellent and showed he is a genuine option in the 'hole' should Azaz be unavailable. 

He has the potential of a really good player.

Lovely pass to Archer for that first goal.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

11 hours ago, benjii said:

Apart from THAT miss, I thought he was excellent and showed he is a genuine option in the 'hole' should Azaz be unavailable. 

He has the potential of a really good player.

Aye, I said earlier in the season, that this season is him getting use to the Championship. 

Next season he should improve a lot further and will be useful. 

Edited 9 hours ago by JohnnyShearer2.0

[austsaint]

On 08/04/2026 at 08:33, saintant said:

Matsuki digs in and does his job for the team. Nothing too flashy but he quietly goes about his business and is very effective.

With Matsuki and Manning the Club has the “Two left feet” many others would like!

[badgerx16]

10 hours ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

Aye, I said earlier in the season, that this season is him getting used to the Championship. 

Next season he should improve a lot further and will be useful. 

Next season will be him "getting used to" the Premier League.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

32 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Next season will be him "getting used to" the Premier League.

Well, if he does a similar job to this year then great!

[Turkish]

11 hours ago, benjii said:

Apart from THAT miss, I thought he was excellent and showed he is a genuine option in the 'hole' should Azaz be unavailable. 

He has the potential of a really good player.

He does and another weird thing that he played really well at Norwich in the league cup, scored a belter then barely played for months. Another odd decision in the first half of the season

[trousers]

22 minutes ago, Turkish said:

He does and another weird thing that he played really well at Norwich in the league cup, scored a belter then barely played for months. Another odd decision in the first half of the season

Indeed... Was very odd at the time and baffling looking back on it

[Tamesaint]

17 minutes ago, trousers said:

Indeed... Was very odd at the time and baffling looking back on it

Yes but we had a manager who couldn't get a tune out of this team and who thought that Dom Ballard wasn't a natural goalscorer. 

[LordHester]

6 hours ago, Tamesaint said:

Yes but we had a manager who couldn't get a tune out of this team and who thought that Dom Ballard wasn't a natural goalscorer. 

Ballard's had one decent season in League One, but Still wasn't the first manager who didn't think he'd make it at a higher level.

[spyinthesky]

15 minutes ago, LordHester said:

Ballard's had one decent season in League One, but Still wasn't the first manager who didn't think he'd make it at a higher level.

To be fair Dom didnt set the world alight at Blackpool but that may have been that he hadnt recovered fully from a bad injury.

[Lighthouse]

Matsuki certainly wins the award for most improved player of the season. Of all the criticisms of Still, I’m not sure that choosing not to play KM is really one of them. He had just turned 22 and never played in England before. That goal against Norwich reserves was a cracker but I think he needed a bit of time to adjust to the Championship.

[St Louis]

6 hours ago, Tamesaint said:

Yes but we had a manager who couldn't get a tune out of this team and who thought that Dom Ballard wasn't a natural goalscorer. 

I would imagine Will Still had absolutely zero say in the Dom Ballard transfer.

In the summer when he left, as well as Stewart and Archer who are still here, we also had Onuachu, Juan, Brereton Diaz and Armstrong on the books. And were in the process of signing Downes.
You can see why we let him go and why he wanted to go, as at the time he wasnt ahead of any of those 6 and was coming off the back of lots of injury issues and 3 unsuccessful loans in League One (he'd only scored 6 goals in 45 League One games and not shown much promise).
I'd also be confident that all 6 of those strikers would score as many (or more) than Ballard in League One (OK... maybe not Downes!)

[Disco Stu]

1 hour ago, LordHester said:

Ballard's had one decent season in League One, but Still wasn't the first manager who didn't think he'd make it at a higher level.

More than decent. Exceptional. He's likely going to win the golden boot.

[bugenhagen]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Matsuki certainly wins the award for most improved player of the season. Of all the criticisms of Still, I’m not sure that choosing not to play KM is really one of them. He had just turned 22 and never played in England before. That goal against Norwich reserves was a cracker but I think he needed a bit of time to adjust to the Championship.

I agree that he probably needed time, as in that game against Norwich, he was bullied off the ball every time a player came near him. Yes, he scored a cracker, and he looked useful in between the lines playing one-twos, but he did not look physically fit to play in the Championship.

When he finally came back in he looked better, both in terms of the pace of the game and the physical side of things.

[Luke SkyWalker-Peters]

I like Ballard but:

a) The club gave him multiple loans after his injury and he struggled. It was best for his career to move on permanently.

b) When Archer was his age he was getting a goal or assist almost every game in the Championship. As Archer has struggled with physicality in the systems we have played, why do people think an objectively slower and weaker Ballard would have had enormous success?

On Matsuki:

He seems to be the first real positive of our multi-club model. We have seemingly signed him for almost nothing and would have been completely unable to do so before SR.

He looks like a manager's favourite type of player. Works hard for the team, good at everything, can play multiple positions and scores goals.

[davefizzy14]

Matsuki is class 😊