Harvey Elliott (signed on loan)

[andyh]

Fully expecting the ‘My Villa Nightmare’ story in the press once he goes home.

[PaulWinch again]

I wouldn’t blame him.

[Duncan Shaw]

I still am more inclined to believe the story that the issue is triggering the obligation in this set of SCR numbers. I guess we'll know come the 2nd half of December. The alternative is that Unai didn't want him in the first place (which I don't buy) or he's turned out to be more useless than Unai thought (which would surprise me).

Agree with this. I think we'll start seeing more of him in December

I think this too, and I think Monchi got a bollocking for not realising.

[chrisw1]

I think the Buendia Renaissance was unexpected.  That, together with Emery clearly not being convinced, means it would be madness to let the £35m deal kick in.

It's awful for the player but it would make sense for Villa to negotiate with Liverpool to send him back at Christmas with us making some sort of payment to cover part of the costs.

[London Villan]

Even more so with Oli’s and Guessand’s form.

[Dave]

If we do want to use him but can't because of this "play ten games as get screwed for UEFA FSR" rumour, I don't really see why Elliott agreed to this.

22 years old, keen to leave one of the biggest clubs in the world just to get more time on the pitch, plenty of decent clubs keen to sign him. Was our pitch to him that he should join us to barely be used at all for the first half of the season just to help our books work out?

If this whole structure is simply for the benefit of our accountancy periods, why didn't everyone agree to a half season loan and we can look at signing him in January and use him as we want for the first half of the season?

The only argument that I can think of is because Liverpool might want more of a guarantee of a pre-agreed sale - but what they now have is an asset who is losing value by sitting on our bench, still with no guarantee that we buy him.

[LeeB]

If we do want to use him but can't because of this "play ten games as get screwed for UEFA FSR" rumour, I don't really see why Elliott agreed to this.

22 years old, keen to leave one of the biggest clubs in the world just to get more time on the pitch, plenty of decent clubs keen to sign him. Was our pitch to him that he should join us to barely be used at all for the first half of the season just to help our books work out?

If this whole structure is simply for the benefit of our accountancy periods, why didn't everyone agree to a half season loan and we can look at signing him in January and use him as we want for the first half of the season?

The only argument that I can think of is because Liverpool might want more of a guarantee of a pre-agreed sale - but what they now have is an asset who is losing value by sitting on our bench, still with no guarantee that we buy him.

This is the only upside of the deal so far.

[Somniloquism]

I honestly think that the UEFA rule of effectively having the value hit the books when it is first triggered was either forgotten about, or was deemed not an issue with us thinking we would get a fee from Martinez to Manure to cover it. As soon as we didn't give ourselves the wriggle room we were then stuck with having to wait out Elliotts 10 games until we can do some business in Jan to cover it.

[Dave]

I honestly think that the UEFA rule of effectively having the value hit the books when it is first triggered was either forgotten about, or was deemed not an issue with us thinking we would get a fee from Martinez to Manure to cover it. As soon as we didn't give ourselves the wriggle room we were then stuck with having to wait out Elliotts 10 games until we can do some business in Jan to cover it.

That's a good theory - but surely any fee for Martinez was immediately planned to be spent on Lammens or similar?

[Drummond]

Liverp

If we do want to use him but can't because of this "play ten games as get screwed for UEFA FSR" rumour, I don't really see why Elliott agreed to this.

22 years old, keen to leave one of the biggest clubs in the world just to get more time on the pitch, plenty of decent clubs keen to sign him. Was our pitch to him that he should join us to barely be used at all for the first half of the season just to help our books work out?

If this whole structure is simply for the benefit of our accountancy periods, why didn't everyone agree to a half season loan and we can look at signing him in January and use him as we want for the first half of the season?

The only argument that I can think of is because Liverpool might want more of a guarantee of a pre-agreed sale - but what they now have is an asset who is losing value by sitting on our bench, still with no guarantee that we buy him.

I think you answered your own question; Liverpool wanted a sale rather than loan. We needed to delay paying and they didn't want to strengthen us without being paid. Hence 10 appearances.

I suspect we will see more of him in the coming weeks. He's played 5 games so far, so 5 left until the trigger point. He's just over the halfway point  this week (joined 1st September, so he's 2 months and 6 days into a 4 month period.)

There have been 10 games since he joined us, and there are 11 games left this year.
 

[Drummond]

I honestly think that the UEFA rule of effectively having the value hit the books when it is first triggered was either forgotten about, or was deemed not an issue with us thinking we would get a fee from Martinez to Manure to cover it. As soon as we didn't give ourselves the wriggle room we were then stuck with having to wait out Elliotts 10 games until we can do some business in Jan to cover it.

That's a good theory - but surely any fee for Martinez was immediately planned to be spent on Lammens or similar?

Depends when the accounting period took effect. Perhaps we were going to stagger the Lammens fee, have a lot of add-ons, and pay less than we were getting in.

[Crown Hill]

My guess would be Monchi was so desperate to get it over the line after such a poor window he agreed a v poor deal at the last minute which we couldn’t afford.

[Dave]

I think you answered your own question; Liverpool wanted a sale rather than loan. We needed to delay paying and they didn't want to strengthen us without being paid. Hence 10 appearances.

But if we're deliberately not playing him, meaning he has no time to impress, and in the meantime other players make their own case for that role - we could decide that we're not going to get to ten matches.

So Liverpool don't get paid, and they have an unhappy player who is probably worth a lot less than he was if they had just sold him to someone last summer.

[Dave]

I honestly think that the UEFA rule of effectively having the value hit the books when it is first triggered was either forgotten about, or was deemed not an issue with us thinking we would get a fee from Martinez to Manure to cover it. As soon as we didn't give ourselves the wriggle room we were then stuck with having to wait out Elliotts 10 games until we can do some business in Jan to cover it.

That's a good theory - but surely any fee for Martinez was immediately planned to be spent on Lammens or similar?

Depends when the accounting period took effect. Perhaps we were going to stagger the Lammens fee, have a lot of add-ons, and pay less than we were getting in.

Not for this it doesn't - this is the UEFA "positive transfer balance" thing. So if we agree to sell Martinez and then spend a big chunk of it on Lammens then it doesn't matter whether we give them £1m per season for the next 20 years or the whole lot in one go. It's still the value of the transfer for both in and out.

[ChicagoLion]

I still am more inclined to believe the story that the issue is triggering the obligation in this set of SCR numbers. I guess we'll know come the 2nd half of December. The alternative is that Unai didn't want him in the first place (which I don't buy) or he's turned out to be more useless than Unai thought (which would surprise me).

Agree with this. I think we'll start seeing more of him in December

Yes, he is getting some stilts for Christmas.