Harvey Elliott (signed on loan)

[Crown Hill]

I reckon that there’s some truth in that last conjecture, although the target may extend beyond “the twats that follow us” to the club itself. Did everyone in the club really understand the deal?

Out of curiosity, how many appearances has Elliot made since Monchi left?

Yep and the Unai comments after the Sunderland game were pretty damning. To me this is why Monchi left so swiftly!

[Lsvilla]

🚨⚠️ Unai Emery confirms Harvey Elliott is likely to leave Aston Villa in January: “Hopefully we can get a solution for him to try to play consistently, to continue in his career with us or not”.

“He is on loan here, but not definitely adding to us with a permanent contract”.

Maybe I'm overthinking it - and he is simply out the door on January 1st - but do the last two sentences suggest he could be staying as a loan signing if they remove the obligation - but no way we're spending £35m on him ?

[LeeB]

🚨⚠️ Unai Emery confirms Harvey Elliott is likely to leave Aston Villa in January: “Hopefully we can get a solution for him to try to play consistently, to continue in his career with us or not”.

“He is on loan here, but not definitely adding to us with a permanent contract”.

Maybe I'm overthinking it - and he is simply out the door on January 1st - but do the last two sentences suggest he could be staying as a loan signing if they remove the obligation - but no way we're spending £35m on him ?

I took it as that.

[eye digress]

I reckon that there’s some truth in that last conjecture, although the target may extend beyond “the twats that follow us” to the club itself. Did everyone in the club really understand the deal?

Out of curiosity, how many appearances has Elliot made since Monchi left?

According to a recent article, five. In all competitions.

Had a quick look. Since Monchi left, he’s played the first 45 vs Fulham and a 4 minute cameo in the Europa.

[Baldy]

I reckon that there’s some truth in that last conjecture, although the target may extend beyond “the twats that follow us” to the club itself. Did everyone in the club really understand the deal?

Out of curiosity, how many appearances has Elliot made since Monchi left?

According to a recent article, five. In all competitions.

Had a quick look. Since Monchi left, he’s played the first 45 vs Fulham and a 4 minute cameo in the Europa.

Five. See link below:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c0q51l742lyo

[Dave]

I reckon that there’s some truth in that last conjecture, although the target may extend beyond “the twats that follow us” to the club itself. Did everyone in the club really understand the deal?

Out of curiosity, how many appearances has Elliot made since Monchi left?

According to a recent article, five. In all competitions.

Had a quick look. Since Monchi left, he’s played the first 45 vs Fulham and a 4 minute cameo in the Europa.

Five. See link below:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c0q51l742lyo

It's not. Three of his five appearances were before Monchi left on September 22nd

[Baldy]

I reckon that there’s some truth in that last conjecture, although the target may extend beyond “the twats that follow us” to the club itself. Did everyone in the club really understand the deal?

Out of curiosity, how many appearances has Elliot made since Monchi left?

According to a recent article, five. In all competitions.

Had a quick look. Since Monchi left, he’s played the first 45 vs Fulham and a 4 minute cameo in the Europa.

Five. See link below:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c0q51l742lyo

It's not. Three of his five appearances were before Monchi left on September 22nd

You are right, sorry. Five in total. I need a trip to specsavers.

[eamonn]

I suspect he will help Liverpool 2nd half of season and end up at Bournemouth ot Palace next season for 25m + add ons

That feels very prescient.

I wouldn't rule out him fitting back in at Liverpool, doing a good job, him being their Buendia and going on to having the sort of career which prompts umpteen "why didn't we just sign him?!?" posts in a few years time.

I thought you were sceptical of Liverpool wanting him back.

[jwarry]

Yep it all feels like we want to do the transfer clause so we are not playing him until they do. Feel a bit sorry for him off thats the case

[Percy McCarthy]

The whole thing is just a pointless spaffing of negative energy.

Why bother with any arrangement at all if ultimately, any one of us is more likely to get a game for Villa than him?

The whole thing makes no sense. It was the only bit of positivity at the end of a shit window. But outside of a couple of appearances a very promising English born player, player of the tournament for the U21s has literally vanished into thin air. Othet than appearing in a Christmas sweater that is on the club website. Is he really so bewildered by the Unai system that he hasn't picked up anything at all in 3 months? No signs of a fall out, argument etc. Is this 10 game thing real that we simply won't play him at all?

Obviously. Based on what we've seen, there is one version of events that makes sense.

We have to spend £30m on him if he plays ten matches. He had come in to play* a role that is a combination of what McGinn / Rogers / Buendia do. From what the club has seen (and given a turbo-boost by what Buendia is doing) we now don't want to commit £30m on him playing that position, thinking that £30m is better used elsewhere. If Buendia had died on his arse in his first couple of appearances (or Elliott had been amazing), I'm guessing we'd have chucked our weight behind the signing. But he didn't, so we're rolling the dice on a couple of years of Buendia being what Elliott was supposed to be, and thinking where that money could be better used.

Elliott is clearly really good, and I'm sure he'd be quite comfortable with whatever Emery wants him to do. But not to the extent that we want to hand over the pre-agreed money for it.

*there's another role that he possibly played, the role of "this guy might make those twats that follow us less angry about how shit the season has started, so just agree to whatever gets this bloke over the line"

I find it confusing that people are confused. We’re restricted by the financial rules and we’d rather spend the money on some other player/s.

[Dave]

I suspect he will help Liverpool 2nd half of season and end up at Bournemouth ot Palace next season for 25m + add ons

That feels very prescient.

I wouldn't rule out him fitting back in at Liverpool, doing a good job, him being their Buendia and going on to having the sort of career which prompts umpteen "why didn't we just sign him?!?" posts in a few years time.

I thought you were sceptical of Liverpool wanting him back.

I'd be sceptical of a Liverpool side doing well under Slot wanting him back, because that's the side that wanted to bin him off to us.

But it feels likely that by the end of January either Slot won't be there or Salah won't be part of their plans anymore, and I can well imagine Elliott being back and part of that rebuild.

[Drummond]

It's an expensive and restricting mistake whatever happens. I can't imagine Liverpool agreeing anything until the last day of the window anyway.

[jwarry]

It's an expensive and restricting mistake whatever happens. I can't imagine Liverpool agreeing anything until the last day of the window anyway.

How is it expensive? Surely it's only expensive if we are forced to activate the permanent transfer isn't it?

[Drummond]

The wages if nothing else.

[PeterWithe]

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.