While we thought we were waiting for Fraizer Campbell to "thrash out a severance package from United", he decided to "thrash out personal terms" at Sunderland instead.
The thrashing approach has worked for City in the past. A year ago, Phil Brown was able to "thrash out a suitable deal" with Geovanni. City and Royal Antwerp were even "trying to thrash out a deal" just to play a friendly.
I've never seen transfer negotiations taking place but I've always thought they generally involved the buying chairman talking his club up while the agent responds by rubbing his thumb and fingers together.
Maybe it's time to ditch this prosaic approach and go head first into crashing around the office, tossing the laptop out of the window and recklessly scrawling all over the contract in order to "thrash things out."
Check back later for this week's Hull City Mad column