18 weird and wonderful transfer unveilings: Sanchez, Salah, Kolasinac

Quick Reads

Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool signings over the past 12 months have all been announced with slightly bizarre social media videos.

The social media confirmation of a transfer has become a form of modern art in recent years, and Alexis Sanchez’s move to Old Trafford was announced in typically grand fashion.

Here, we’ve taken a look back at 17 weird and wonderful player unveilings from over the last 18 months, featuring the likes of Paul Pogba, Mo Salah and Ilkay Gundogan.

So without further ado, there’s only one place to start.

Alexis Sanchez – Manchester United

Apparently he actually was playing the piano, which impressed us. But we’re still left wondering who came up with this idea and put it to Sanchez? Unless it was his idea, of course…

Georges-Kevin Nkoudou – Tottenham

This just seems like an awful lot of hassle to go through to announce the signing of Nkoudou. The duration of the video (35 seconds) is over 50% the amount of Premier League minutes (1) the winger has played for Tottenham this season.

Jake Gray – Yeovil Town

Next time Yeovil use Snapchat to announce a signing we hope it’s the player sat on the toilet bored after training.

Sead Kolasinac – Arsenal

We’re not sure that Arsenal listing 10 players fans would rather have seen them sign was a good way of announcing Kolasinac.

Sandro Ramirez – Everton

This looks like Ramirez has been held hostage somewhere and Everton have come to rescue him, which coincidentally is exactly how Malaga will probably re-sign the striker.

Roque Mesa – Swansea City

Nice, innocent fun, featuring the customary awkward thumbs up from Mesa. This would have been better if Angel Rangel had tried to teach the midfielder the Welsh language.

Lorenzo Pellegrini – Roma

You know how your mate Craig keeps suggesting your team should sign players he’s in his Ultimate Team? Turns out that’s exactly how Monchi discovers players for Roma.

Jan Bednarek – Southampton

The problem with Southampton being incredibly subtle about signing Bednarek was that nobody has any idea who he is and they had to explain it in a subsequent tweet.

Mo Salah – Liverpool

Admittedly, Salah looks painfully awkward at the end, but this is fine. It sort of pokes fun at the whole concept and mercifully lasts only 17 seconds.

Ilkay Gundogan – Manchester City

We quite like this one, tbh. It’s pretty much exactly the same as Liverpool announcing Salah but without the awkwardness of putting a reticent footballer in front of a camera.

Nathan Ake – Bournemouth

Yep, this is good.

Jay Rodriguez – West Brom

In an ideal world West Brom would reply to the original tweet with a video of Rodriguez telling Riece to “wind his f*cking neck in”.

Josh Tymon – Stoke City

Winner of the most awkward thumbs up in the history of the universe. Now we’re not seeing the guy managing the website that day didn’t know that much about Josh Tymon, but notice the Wikipedia tab…

They also had the Oatcake forum open. It’s always nice to know whether your work is appreciated.

Frank De Boer – Crystal Palace

Thirty-five unexplained seconds of white smoke billowing out of a chicken shop to announce De Boer becoming the new Pope of South London. Perfectly nonsensical, much like the Dutchman’s tenure in charge of the Eagles.

Jamie Ness – Plymouth Argyle

Plymouth spent the summer tweeting pretty difficult cryptic pictograms for who they’ve signed. The first response to this suggested “Legonoodle Windermere is a cracking player”.

John Terry – Aston Villa

Imagine what actually gets posted in a WhatsApp group featuring John Terry, Gabby Agbonlahor and Jack Grealish.

Bruno Viana – Sporting Braga

Braga created a brilliant Pokemon animation to announce their permanent capture of on-loan Olympiakos defender Viana on a five-year deal. They will be hoping the 23-year-old Brazilian will be able to – *sideways glance to camera* – evolve into a world-class international.

Paul Pogba – Manchester United

We can’t really forgive the whole ‘PogBOOM’ thing, but this was actually really great and should have forced other clubs to just stop trying. Pogba and Stormzy have won.

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