Harvey Elliott (signed on loan)

[Dave]

The wages if nothing else.

And if we did want to send him back to open up another domestic loan spot in the squad then Liverpool aren't going to do that for free. Especially given how we've messed them around.

Not too far removed from Chelsea paying Man Utd to not sign Sancho, which people found terribly amusing last summer.

[paul_e]

Given the precarious financial situation, the pretty shabby way we’ve treated him will hardly endear us to other potential loan signings we’ll be looking at to strengthen the squad in January.

A rare moment we’ve planned poorly and implemented that plan badly.

I doubt many players would give the slightest fuck about it. Everyone knows that sometimes signings don't work out, they're not going to think less of clubs as a result. In much the same way they won't look at Rashford and decide to join us because he had a good loan spell.

All players will see is a club that is in the mix for the regularly champions league.

[Dave]

Given the precarious financial situation, the pretty shabby way we’ve treated him will hardly endear us to other potential loan signings we’ll be looking at to strengthen the squad in January.

A rare moment we’ve planned poorly and implemented that plan badly.

I doubt many players would give the slightest fuck about it. Everyone knows that sometimes signings don't work out, they're not going to think less of clubs as a result. In much the same way they won't look at Rashford and decide to join us because he had a good loan spell.

All players will see is a club that is in the mix for the regularly champions league.

Agree with that, players are going to look at the many successes over the occasional mistake - but I imagine next time we're negotiating a transfer and ask a club to structure a deal to help get us out of an accounting snafu, they're likely to bring this situation up.

[PaulTheVillan]

I'd really like to understand what's going on here? Maybe nothing? I was pleased when we signed him, but so far it seems to have been a waste of time.

[VILLA MOLE]

I guess it is the beauty of a loan signing .  We have looked at him , he is good but not worth spending  £35 million in that department becasue we are well stocked.  Lets allocate that money elsewhere   

[algy]

I guess it is the beauty of a loan signing .  We have looked at him , he is good but not worth spending  £35 million in that department becasue we are well stocked.  Lets allocate that money elsewhere

Yeah, this.  We've looked at him, he hasn't done enough to justify spaffing £35m on.  Maybe if Liverpool had put a more sane playing clause in he might've had more chance to play himself in to form as it were.  But the 10 game clause meant he needed to hit the ground running, and he hasn't done that.  Shit happens, I don't think it's our fault that there's a daft clause in there as I can't see us having petitioned for it.  This one is on Liverpool's mad negotiation tactics IMO.

[Drummond]

You can't blame Liverpool for it. We fucked up.

[PaulWinch again]

Yeah it’s not Liverpool, if anything they were doing us a favour - which I suspect most clubs will think twice about.

[VILLA MOLE]

You can't blame Liverpool for it. We fucked up.

I think it is a Fuck up if we spent £35 million and then not want him.

Least damage possible for the club less so for him though

[Drummond]

We're stuck with a player we don't want enough to pay £35m for, (or we can't afford), and therefore he can't play. We're tied to his wages for a season. We agreed the deal and that's why Monchi went.

[PaulWinch again]

Well yes, but it’s pretty clear that the deal was set up to be permanent but was structured as a loan to help with our compliance with the financial rules. The fact we’ve utilised the structure to get out of it maybe sensible now, but I imagine will influence Liverpool and potentially other clubs and their dealings with us. If it were the other way round I’d expect Villa to be pretty hesitant accommodating such a deal with a club that had done this.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

The wages if nothing else.

It maybe the same situation as Chelsea found themselves with Sancho. He was so Meh with them that they forked out £8 million (or some such, as a loan fee) to Manchester United to avoid having to pay the obligatory transfer fee they'd agreed.

[Dave]

I guess it is the beauty of a loan signing .  We have looked at him , he is good but not worth spending  £35 million in that department becasue we are well stocked.  Lets allocate that money elsewhere

Yeah, this.  We've looked at him, he hasn't done enough to justify spaffing £35m on.  Maybe if Liverpool had put a more sane playing clause in he might've had more chance to play himself in to form as it were.  But the 10 game clause meant he needed to hit the ground running, and he hasn't done that.  Shit happens, I don't think it's our fault that there's a daft clause in there as I can't see us having petitioned for it.  This one is on Liverpool's mad negotiation tactics IMO.

Their aim was to sell him to someone last summer.

We wanted to sign him but our restrictions stopped us from signing him permanently when they wanted us to, so they structured the deal to suit our accounting requirements.

This isn't their "mad negotiation tactics", this is closer to us welching on the deal as everyone involved understood it.

Which doesn't matter, we've (as things stand) taken advantage of that fact, so good on us.

But if there is any "blame" to hand out, it's on us, not them.

[Bully2345]

I don't think it's an expensive mistake. I remember reading that he is actually on a comparatively low basic wage at Liverpool (less £50k per week). Presumably the permanent transfer includes an agreed pay hike, which would presumably be +£100k per week, which we won't want to trigger.

If we can cut and run now and if we're only covering his current wage, it's not actually that expensive. Liverpool will probably need to negotiate some sort of exit deal as he can only play for them or us this season but going back to Liverpool at least gives him a chance of some playing time rather than us winding down his season without activating the ten games 

[paul_e]

I guess it is the beauty of a loan signing .  We have looked at him , he is good but not worth spending  £35 million in that department becasue we are well stocked.  Lets allocate that money elsewhere

Yeah, this.  We've looked at him, he hasn't done enough to justify spaffing £35m on.  Maybe if Liverpool had put a more sane playing clause in he might've had more chance to play himself in to form as it were.  But the 10 game clause meant he needed to hit the ground running, and he hasn't done that.  Shit happens, I don't think it's our fault that there's a daft clause in there as I can't see us having petitioned for it.  This one is on Liverpool's mad negotiation tactics IMO.

Their aim was to sell him to someone last summer.

We wanted to sign him but our restrictions stopped us from signing him permanently when they wanted us to, so they structured the deal to suit our accounting requirements.

This isn't their "mad negotiation tactics", this is closer to us welching on the deal as everyone involved understood it.

Which doesn't matter, we've (as things stand) taken advantage of that fact, so good on us.

But if there is any "blame" to hand out, it's on us, not them.

Assuming:
- There's a 10 game clause
- We wanted the deal this way to avoid spending the money in 2025
- UEFA consider the cost incurred as soon as the clause is triggered

If all of that is true as expected then the biggest problem is the number of games. By restricting it to 10 we couldn't have used him much more than we have even if he was brilliant and we are 100% behind a permanent transfer. As soon as that was agreed there was always a risk he was going to end up forgotten because we will have played 26 games by the time we could trigger the clause so he was, at best, available for about 40%. 20 or even 25 games would've been a much more sensible number for everyone involved.