The German youth international was signed on loan deadline day last Thursday but will not meet up with his new colleagues at Sixfields until next week.

When he does arrive, though, Gray is backing the 19-year-old – currently fourth choice at Old Trafford behind Edwin van der Sar, Tomasz Kuszczak and Ben Foster – to be a big hit, and confirmed his recruitment is one that has been a long time in the making.

"He's got a great pedigree and I think if you play for Manchester United then you've got to be a bit special," said the Cobblers boss.

"They rate him very highly and he's probably about fourth choice there.

They've got an abundance of players and an abundance of talent.

But it's a good coup for us and we're very grateful that Manchester United have let us take the boy in."

Frank Fielding is due to head back to Blackburn Rovers after the game at Scunthorpe United a week on Saturday, which would have left the club with Chris Dunn as their only senior goalkeeper.

Had Dunn got injured, the club might have been able to make an emergency loan signing, but Gray has opted for a proactive approach rather than a reactive one in snapping up Zieler.

The feeling at Sixfields is that Dunn will be the first-choice keeper in the near future – certainly there are no plans in place to buy a new netminder to take over the number one jersey vacated by Mark Bunn.

But in the meantime, Zieler is likely to take up first-team duties,
something Gray says the youngster is very excited about doing.

"I know Eric Steele, the goalkeeping coach at Manchester United, because I worked with him for a while at Aston Villa," he said.

"Zieler's a player I've been chasing for a long while. We know we need to get a bit of strength in depth on board.

"We can't afford to go into the Christmas period with just Chris Dunn as our number one and then the young scholar in Paul Walker as his back-up.

"Zieler is very excited about coming to the club and he'll have to force his way into the side once he gets here."