I think sometimes there’s a case of forgetting the meta, which is that typing a headline takes a lot less time than arranging a player announcement. The contracts being signed can be leaked to the press, who will say “Twine has agreed to sign for Hull City.” So we sit there thinking “why haven’t the club announced it?”. Well, wouldn’t it look daft if they organised the photoshoot, did the little intro video in the stadium, paid a video editor, photographer, somebody to print the shirt etc before the contract was signed and then the player “popped out to lunch” and signed for QPR who had just spoken to his agent? The window between the contract being signed and the player being “announced” depends entirely on how quickly the media stuff can be knocked up. If the player isn’t wanted by anybody else (for example, when Tufan signed), it takes no time at all because the owner can say “okay, Ozan Tufan is coming, he’s agreed everything, get started on the video while he signs the contract.” When it’s a player like Twine or this winger we are after, there’ll be a much bigger gap. To us mere mortals, that gap seems massive, but actually it isn’t and newspapers have a habit of jumping the gun in order to get views (imagine that).
Regardless of media jumping guns and waiting for photoshoots etc which all teams need to contend with, I still think we are comparatively slow for some reason. There's been situations where a player is actually training with the team and still no announcement, and I'm not even including Traore.
But that's down to the order you see it in. Once the player has signed and done their media stuff, they can go join in training. The videos alone take a couple of hours to put together I imagine and they get released all at once, so there's always going to be a gap while it all gets sorted.
Or it will get drowned out if we get stuffed today? If we get beat now then his announcement on Monday deflects and a bit of damage limitation?
St mirren aren't in a financial position to bid £5m for anyone, their turn over is around that a year
Rosenior on Twine "won't comment on players that are under contract with another club". Hmmn. Done or not?
If Lokilo wasn't first choce I think we've struck gold there, if the other wingers mentioned are as good or better it could get quite exciting. I never understood the love for Tufan as Traore is a more well balanced player, but Tufan today was unplayable, if this Twine is as good as everyone is saying he is then that position is well and truely covered. There are going to be a lot of unhappy players that can't get in the starting 11 (OK we'll have rotations, but he will probably be looking at keeping a starting 11 and not rotating too much), there is the AFCON as well so we'll lose a few for 6 weeks which will benefit a few players and it'll be up to them then to stake a claim to a starting spot and not lose it.
