Harvey Elliott (signed on loan)

[pauliewalnuts]

Yep, JJ went because we needed the extra financial injection from 40m or whatever it was for a homegrown player.

Except Damian has said that we offered him a new deal but he refused to sign it. So had he done so, would we have sold someone else? Or just not bought Guessand? Fine by me.

Well, that doesn't rule it out as an explanation, in fact, it makes it more likely - we have a player refusing a new deal, who represents PSR gold.

He was home grown, sell him and we bank the entirety of the 40m fee in this year's accounts. We then go and absolutely waste spend 30m on Guessand on (guessing here) a 5 year deal, and we're taking a 6m a year hit to the accounts.

Keeping JJ rather than buying another player was much more than just a "is this player better than that one" comparison.

I get that but our preference was to keep him. I was speculating on what we would have done had we come to an agreement as it was touch and go whether he'd leave or not and this was mid-August. What do you think we'd have done had we not sold him?

Only thing I can think of, to meet UEFAs rules with two weeks to go, would have been to let Martínez go on the cheap to Yanited or refuse loans for Bailey but take less for a transfer fee than we wanted.

Yep, we'd have had to sell someon else.

[Matt C]

Move Martinez or Bailey on earlier in the summer - which seems to have been the assumed path but didn’t happen (a loan offer for Emi and cooled Saudi interest in Bailey) - and Ramsey would still be here.