Harvey Elliott (signed on loan)

[eamonn]

I can't help but feel we've been twats about it all.

I feel for the lad, he’s ended up with the shitty end of the stick. But we could’ve easily been shafted by Liverpool’s clause. It’s them who’ve created the situation.

It's not. They wanted to sell him in the summer. We wanted to buy him but needed to piss about with clauses because of our sailing-close-to-the-wind accounting. They were just as happy taking £30m from Leipzig last summer but agreed to structure the deal to make it work for us.

We've now made the best of the situation, so good for us. But if there is a bad guy in this (and for now, it looks like we'll come out of it well, so I couldn't care less if we are), then it's us not them.

I wouldn't say it's as clear cut as that, I doubt it was us inserting the '10 games compulsory purchase' clause knowing the buying club is walking a financial tightrope.

They wanted to sell him, and coming off the U21s success was the time to extract maximum value from selling him. The ten game thing is very deliberately set at that low level to make sure that we ended up buying him. This wasn't intended as one of those "see if you like this player, and then you can buy him if it turns out he's good" type deals, this was a "you're going to buy this player and the deal will be structured to make sure that you do" type deals.

More fool them, as it didn't work out as planned - to our (probable) advantage and their, and his detriment. If they could go back to the summer, Elliott would be playing in the Bundesliga right now and Liverpool would be £30m better off.

Then why agree to/put the clause in at all? They could have just sold him to Leipzig without any worries of him not playing 10 games. Did we offer more than Leipzig (ie was it £35m and not £30m)?

[eamonn]

The bottom line is, the contractual situation left the position we are in now as a possibly outcome ie that we wouldn’t want him for the money so he’d be left in limbo. This idea that it has suddenly come as a surprise to player or either club is poorly thought out. The payer should be angry with his advisors. Equally we should be mad at whoever agreed £35 million because even as his best that’s a stretch for the lad.

I'm not sure it is a stretch given his undoubted talent and what we paid for Guessand.

[PeterWithesShin]

He may have preferred moving to a club down the road rather than in another country. We wanted to sign him, couldn't pay the full fee, did this deal assuming no problem as we wanted him, Liverpool agreed, and then a combination of Buendia hitting form and i'm guessing Elliott not clicking with us means we no longer want to sign him. It happens and everyone involved will survive just fine. If anyone is then it's us that are the baddies but meh, i'd expect Liverpool to do the same if the situation was the other way round and i'd expect Elliott to say no thanks if he wasn't happy here.

[N'ZMAV]

What if another club signs him, but then loans him to someone else with an option to buy. I bet he could play then!

Yes. Get Fulham to sign him in January and loan him back to us for the second half of the season, with us covering most of his wages. Liverpool make the sale now, we have an extra body for the run-in, Harvey gets another PL Winners medal, and Fulham have an improved player in the summer who's had another 6 months of coaching under El Maestro. It's a win for all involved.

we can't do that - as the loan would be terminated by the transfer from Liverpool to Fulham, and we've had our maximum of 2 domestic loans, so we couldn't loan him again, as it would be a third domestic loan.

I believe it is not a maximum of 2 loans a season, but two at the same time. So if we lost Elliot back to Liverpool and then loaned someone else in from a premier league team, it should be fine. Not stating the above option would be valid as a purchased player can't be loaned in the premier league in the same window but we could get someone else in up to a maximum of four domestic loans.

yeah you're right

[aj2k77]

If Liverpool are that bothered they can remove the compulsory purchase part of the proposed deal and we'll have him on the bench. They thought they could have our pants down on a large fee because of all the restrictions put on us and Emery has played hard and not selected him.

Fantastic management by The Don again. It's a shame for Elliot as he's done the right thing and looked for a move to get more playing time, more power to him. It hasn't worked out for various reason but I hope he does well in the future, just not against us.

[Toronto Villa]

Taken from excerpts from the press conference today via Tanswell and Townley.

Unai Emery admits we decided two months ago against signing Harvey Elliott permanently, explaining that his departure would free up space to strengthen the squad.

Emery: "We have the issue with Harvey. I am respecting him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very respectful but the situation we have is something I must take a decision on but not damage the person. He’s a very good person and player and deserves the best."

It’s a ludicrous situation as a club, that we signed a player, spent whatever had to make the deal and since, and month or so later decided it was a bad deal and essentially stuffed him back in the box like a return item at a store. Not a good look for us and a shame for the player. In the end he will go back and we will move on but it’s not how business should be done.

[Percy McCarthy]

I don’t think it’s that ludicrous to be honest. We had a mad panic/trolley dash after the 0-3 v Palace, Buendia didn’t go and was obviously a better fit over the next few weeks, and we felt we could spend £35m better elsewhere. Don’t forget that until the last few days of the window we were still hoping to sign Asensio or Paquetta, both fell through and we had to quickly reconsider things.

It’s been obvious for months what was happening. I’m only confused by others’ confusion.

[260475]

Is there zero chance of him making a start? Could find we've missed out on something, which I'm pretty sure we have.

[usav]

I don’t think it’s that ludicrous to be honest.

Give me another example where we have done that?

[Percy McCarthy]

Is there zero chance of him making a start? Could find we've missed out on something, which I'm pretty sure we have.

You think we’d have done better with him playing instead of McGinn and/or Buendia?

[Gareth]

Taken from excerpts from the press conference today via Tanswell and Townley.

Unai Emery admits we decided two months ago against signing Harvey Elliott permanently, explaining that his departure would free up space to strengthen the squad.

Emery: "We have the issue with Harvey. I am respecting him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very respectful but the situation we have is something I must take a decision on but not damage the person. He’s a very good person and player and deserves the best."

It’s a ludicrous situation as a club, that we signed a player, spent whatever had to make the deal and since, and month or so later decided it was a bad deal and essentially stuffed him back in the box like a return item at a store. Not a good look for us and a shame for the player. In the end he will go back and we will move on but it’s not how business should be done.

On the flip side ludicrous for Liverpool who were expecting to send him out on loan to play him at the start of the season therefore creating a situation where if the first loan didn’t work this would happen

Whoever inserted the 10 game clause gets a round of applause because some of us clubs can’t go spunking 400m up the wall and then look to bang out another 100m+ 3 months later because the first set of toys haven’t been great.

Hope he gets to play somewhere and fulfils his potential one day

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

What if another club signs him, but then loans him to someone else with an option to buy. I bet he could play then!

Yes. Get Fulham to sign him in January and loan him back to us for the second half of the season, with us covering most of his wages. Liverpool make the sale now, we have an extra body for the run-in, Harvey gets another PL Winners medal, and Fulham have an improved player in the summer who's had another 6 months of coaching under El Maestro. It's a win for all involved.

we can't do that - as the loan would be terminated by the transfer from Liverpool to Fulham, and we've had our maximum of 2 domestic loans, so we couldn't loan him again, as it would be a third domestic loan.

I believe it is not a maximum of 2 loans a season, but two at the same time. So if we lost Elliot back to Liverpool and then loaned someone else in from a premier league team, it should be fine. Not stating the above option would be valid as a purchased player can't be loaned in the premier league in the same window but we could get someone else in up to a maximum of four domestic loans.

It’s 2 domestic loans at any one time isn’t it, hence us trying to terminate this loan to free up another?

[PeterWithesShin]

I'm glad we found out he wasn't a fit for us before buying him. I wish him well but he's missed a few months of football and has been well paid, he's hardly had it hard.

[LeeB]

Props to Deano, working hard to get him off our hands and fee up another loan for us, what a fucking hero that man is.

[Dave]

On the flip side ludicrous for Liverpool who were expecting to send him out on loan to play him at the start of the season therefore creating a situation where if the first loan didn’t work this would happen

It was a bit silly, but they weren't expecting to send him out on loan, they were expecting to sell him.