Benie Traore state of play as Sheffield United hope for visa progress over new boy

United paid Swedish side Hacken an undisclosed fee to land Traore’s services, with the Ivorian forward flying to Portugal to briefly meet his new teammates and manager Paul Heckingbottom before returning to Sweden and prepare for the move to England.

Delays obtaining the documentation to work in England have delayed his debut for the Blades, with Heckingbottom and his coaching staff initially hoping to get their hands on the 20-year-old as soon as possible to begin getting him up to speed with life at United - and in English football.

United now hope there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Speaking after Saturday’s 3-1 friendly victory over Derby County at Pride Park, which saw Traore miss out again, Heckingbottom admitted: “I could be 100 per cent off on this but Tom Little has been in touch with Benie and he says he should have his passport today. If that’s the case, and he has, we will get him on a flight [on Sunday].

“He had some video when he came over to Portugal and we were hoping it would just be a couple of days before we got working with him. If it wasn’t a case of him handing over his passport for his visa, we could have had him here.

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“We wanted to get him over when he signed in Portugal, to make a fuss of him and meet everyone. Otherwise he would have signed however long ago and still not met his teammates and the rest of the staff. That was important but it meant he had to fly back and hand his passport in. And we have been waiting for that.”