Stoke City chief Tony Scholes says a loan deal is close to being finalised for Lokomotiv Moscow winger Haminu Dramani.

Scholes told Stoke's website: "Everything at our end has now been completed and we are just awaiting some signatures from the other parties involved.

"We are pressing and pressing, and hopefully very imminently we will be able to make an announcement.

"The work permit issue always takes a day or two, even if it is pretty straightforward which this one should be, it still takes time.

"We aren't signing a lad from Wolverhampton or Manchester here, we are taking a Ghanaian from a team in Moscow.

"There are African agents involved, Russian agents involved and we have got an English agent involved as well, so it isn't going to be easy.

"The thing is with these sort of deals, the more complex it is the longer it is going to take to get sorted.

"That doesn't mean that things aren't being done incorrectly, it just means things are a little bit harder to get completed.

"Even if we get it done today he won't be able to feature this weekend."