There had been a plethora of reports during the day on Wednesday that Nico Gonzalez was all but confirmed as a Newcastle United player.
Yet, when the Geordie faithful began to flock to St James' Park in their thousands to watch their team play West Brom in the Carabao Cup that evening, we were yet to have an official unveiling.
As kick off edged closer, about 10 minutes before to be exact, a tsunami of social media activity from the club, big journalists and the footballing world as a whole finally broke the silence on the deal for Gonzalez - it was finally official.
But, whilst those who may not have been fortunate enough to attend the game were reacting and rejoicing at the marquee signing we have all been waiting for, there were many occupying seats in the stadium who had absolutely no idea about the announcement.
What that meant was that, when the announcer came over the tannoy and advised the crowd to remain in their seats for the period before kick off, there was a genuine, unadulterated feeling of excitement at what may be happening - many may have put two and two together, but it certainly wasn't an absolute conclusion.
Nico entered the pitch, the crowd stood, applauded and roared as their new man strode to the centre of the hallowed turf.
Ultimately, what happened was emotion was evoked, something which has been dragged from the heart of the beautiful game for some time now and it is mainly down to the modern media landscape.
The transfer paradox & attention economy
The prevalence of transfer journalists such as Fabrizio Romano and David Ornstein are not present without some interest. Hence the idea of this attention economy which suggests that because the digital world moves so quickly and is so disseminated, those trying to draw attention must be the first to gain said attention or face being swamped by the masses.
Whether you want to believe it or not, which many of us don't, being able to remain on the pulse with everything regarding our club is a privilege that we all indulge in.
And it is for that reason that we see rumours become stories with substance before we even have time to process, news broken before the club has prepared a statement, rulings broadcast to the world before governing bodies can spread the word.
But ultimately, what the age of social media and all the rest have created is a sporting environment, especially in the case of football, where nothing is a surprise, nothing allows us to feel anymore - which is inherently contradictory to the foundations upon which the sport was built.
This is where the paradox comes in, the modern landscape of transfer news draws in the most eyes of any media substance in football and we all consume that genre of news every single day. Yet, whilst it has become so important to the game, it is actually concurrently both enhancing and ruining our experience of the sport.
Reminiscing on transfer windows past
This doesn't just stretch to transfers, but they are the best facet to explore the idea. We all remember what transfer windows were like even just a decade ago.
Peter Odemwingie arriving at QPR, Mesut Ozil announced on Sky Sports with the reporter surrounded by jubilant Arsenal fans. I could go on and on about some of the most iconic moments our sport has ever produced that were products of the transfer window.
Now genuinely try to cast your mind back to the last time anywhere in top level football saw anything like that happen?
The closest I can think of was Luuk de Jong's arrival at Porto last year where he was brought onto the pitch completely out of the blue with not even a rumour of a possible move.
Other than that example it seems we get the same process every time. Player linked, talks opened, terms agreed, fee agreed, player announced - but all of which in the media spotlight and none of which remotely under wraps.
We need more unveilings like Nico Gonzalez
All it takes to see that football fans are crying out for more of what we saw the other night is the look on the faces of those inside the stadium, listen to the noise in the videos on the club account and look at the reaction from fans of other clubs too.
It was so unbelievably refreshing to see the clock wound back to the nostalgic reveals we used to get often and proved, at least to me, that football fans may be coming to the end of their tether with the current format of news.
If we can continue to haul back the professional space to prioritise fan feeling, emotion and genuine connection rather than the fast-forward point scoring landscape in which we currently reside, football will definitely be a better place.
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