It would be a shame for the player to lose an entire year of his career. He might be taking it professionally but he has to be fuming inside. And I can see why Liverpool wouldn’t take him back either. Elliott is a good player stuck in limbo. It would be great by the deadline if a resolution can be found. Even if our deal is cancelled and goes to MLS as was being rumoured.
Or for an agreed consideration Liverpool remove the buy clause. I think he would be used more than 4 times if that was the case given the current injury crisis.
I will be very surprised if some sort of deal can't be reached by the end of the window. He's clearly not going to play for us if there's a chance it triggers the £35m purchase. We're clearly not going to give £35m to Liverpool at the end of the season.
If I was Liverpool, and they really have no use for him in their squad for the second half of the season, then I'd happily take a couple of million as a "loan fee" and tear up the obligation to buy (I'm assuming we didn't pay a loan fee for the season given it was assumed we'd be buying him). Then he could play for us, and get back in the shop window if they still want to sell him in the summer.
If he's sat at bodymoor on the 2nd Feb, and the deal hasn't changed at all, then I think that's a failure on our part and Liverpool's - but the biggest loser will be Harvey himself, who seems to have done very little wrong beyond not convincing Unai to spend £35m on him.
