27 weird & wonderful Twitter transfer announcements: Sanchez, Salah, Terry…

Quick Reads
  • Planet Football
  • 10th August 2018

Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool are just some of the many clubs to have announced signings with slightly bizarre social media videos.

The social media confirmation of a transfer has become a form of modern art in recent years, with clubs seemingly desperate to outdo each other.

Here, we’ve taken a look back at some of the weirdest and most wonderful player unveilings, featuring the likes of Paul Pogba, Mo Salah and, of course, Alexis Sanchez.

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 played for Tottenham in the 2017-18 campaign.

Lucas Perez – West Ham

Not only is imagining Perez will cost fantasy football players £6.5m a bit of a stretch, but the “smile” at the end of this video just makes it complete.

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.

Andre Moreira – Aston Villa

Ok, we do actually appreciate the “enter the Villa” pun in all fairness.

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.

Arthur – Barcelona

Right, what the hell is this all about?

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.

Oscar Gobern – Yeovil Town

Someone at Huish Park is certainly inventive.

Antonio Rudiger – Chelsea

We’re genuinely embarrassed by this one.

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.

Jesus Navas – Sevilla

We think staging a kidnap might just be a bit too far.

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”.

Marcel De Jong & David Edgar – Vancouver Whitecaps

We think Pokemon Go was still a thing in 2016? We presume it’s not now? Who knows.

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.

Ronaldo Vieira – Sampdoria

Poking fun at Juventus’ announcement of *Cristiano* Ronaldo, Sampdoria announced their own Ronaldo (Vieira).

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.

Santi Cazorla – Villarreal

We step away from the usual social media efforts to be different for this from Villarreal, who completely unnecessarily got a magician to make Cazorla appear in a plume of smoke, even though it was common knowledge that the midfielder had returned to the Spanish club.

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