DC United general manager Dave Kasper was over the moon to have signed Hamdi Salihi last month.

The Washington club were in the market for a top quality striker in the winter and with Salihi coming out of contract with Rapid Vienna in summer, they made him their top target.

Kasper admitted the club could have tried to sign Salihi on a pre-contract agreement but with the knowledge that the 28-year old Albanian wanted to leave Vienna in January, DC made it a priority to snap up his services.

"When a player is six months from his contract finishing, there's a mad scramble, because you can sign him to a pre-contract," Kasper said.

"The first thing we tried to do was sign him to a pre-contract to arrive in the summer. The way it was going, we decided not to proceed with a pre-contract and to try to get him now.

"He made it known he wanted to move in January so that's what we focused on. It took the whole transfer window. It was pretty tense, especially the last three days of the transfer window. There were a lot of rumors circulating."

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