Alejandro Garnacho - loan deal agreed

[Villan82]

Again, the reaction is widely over the top.

For a start he's only 22 and is an international. He is rapid and has bags of experience in the premier league. £40m is not a huge fee today. In fact £40m today is probably the equivalent of about £3.5-£4m in 1996. The Shearer transfer was £15m, the Rogers transfer in 2026 is £117m.

Think of it this way. In the mid 90s if you were signing a 22 year old Argentine international you'd be looking at paying £4-£5m - and if he didn't work out you'd be thinking someone will surely look to take him off us next season.

[Small Rodent]

My post is that I think, based on the information we have, is that we are compliant.

By way of caution, I have not seen either contract so I am at a serious disadvantage. Equally, neither has Fabrizio and I wouls be skeptical of what his interpretation is and placing any legal significance to it.

One thing's for sure - if we have done something silly yet again which in turns screws us (unable to play Garnacho / UEFA are grumpy with us / other), then after all the previous SNAFUs it's definitely time to accept that as a club we're just not very good at this rather than whining about the mean rules that keep holding us back.

If we're using old US military terms, SNAFU from the club and BOHICA from UEFA.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

He's certainly got the talent and I never realised just how fast he is. Over to you, Unai..

[ChicagoLion]

Unai Emery is the best manager Aston Villa can possibly have right now. We are bloody lucky to have him, and god knows who else we would get if he walked out tomorrow.

He is absolutely essential to the club's ambitions.

There is no way the owners are going to start treating him like shit and giving him ultimatums over taking dodgy players and risking him saying goodbye.

Exactly

[Smithy]

To replace Rogers with Garnacho is one thing, but to replace him with Garnacho in a way that UEFA are nailed-on guaranteed to find some kind of fault with, and thus make us lose out on most of the profit, is something else.

Make a note of this because this is exactly how it will unfold.They will value Rogers at £60m and Garnacho  at £50m, giving us just £10m profit. I would value Rogers at £130m and Garnacho at £28m

If it happened in a vacuum that might make sense, but value’s are inherently influenced by the market. It’s pretty obvious for us to be able to point to market comparisons and show the fee paid for Rogers is not out of step.

Do you actually get the opportunity to make that representation though?  My reading of the rules is that if Garnacho is deemed a guaranteed obligation, they simply wipe his entire fee off the Rogers fee and we only get to book the difference - so about £75m.

It seems brutal, but that was my reading of the wording.  And IF we have put ourselves in that position, it seems incredibly naive.

I don't see how any conditional purchase can be deemed "guaranteed" when we've literally just demonstrated, very publicly, that even a "play 10 games while on loan" condition isn't a guaranteed purchase.  If the Garnacho conditions are more than 10 games, I don't see how they can claim it's "guaranteed", given the Harvey Elliott debacle last season?

[Holy Trinity]

I'll start with this that im not a.fan of this transfer however.

He is 22, has bags of experience for his age, has ambition, is fast as fook, is skillfull, can shot, can pass, can cross.

He is a massive upgrade on sancho and guessand.

With all that in mind he deserves a fair shot at it. Rashford was the big evil at united, came here and did really well.

If anyone can turn him around its Unai and if we are going to switch up our play a little this season which seems to be the case he could be pivotal

[caster troy]

Loan with obligation, loan from a rival (can't play in at least two big games), question marks over ties to Rogers deal, possible bad attitude, questionable ability/consistency, expensive, possibly blows our winger budget. Not a fan of this personally.

Previous loans from Chelsea - Barkley (good start then useless), Disasi (one good game, multiple disasters), Sancho (useless).

[Hookeysmith]

If we were signing Mason Greenwood I could understand some of the over the top nonsense like that Mirror abomination or the Talksport twats but we are signing a player of potential that has been at two basket clubs….£40m will be a snip by PL standards if he’s a success and our club and manager are the best platform he could want.

Just don’t get what the issue is

It’s over to him if he’s wants it now.

This is exactly the case - the media will never rubbish the lack of coaching by muppets at Chelsea or "them" yet the reality is there for any like minded genuine football fan.
Of all the Red filth players we have rehabilitated he is the one i think we can get the best return from.

Rashford was a great ego boost for us, and got us a lot of positive press at the time and got him back to his best and his dream move as well as a quick recall to the England set up.

Sancho - i just did not think he was all that when he came to prominence and still think he was so over hyped that the scum were duped into paying a huge fee for him. He showed with us only flashes as the real ability was just not there.

Garnachio - he has it all, pace, guile, skill and if our superb coach can nurture him i think he will be the best of the 3 we have taken

Even at 22 this is his last chance in the premier league and he will soon realise that under this coach it is his best ever chance to shine*






* If we do get to realise his potential it will be how THey found it and Chelsea wasted it - not the genius of SUE

[Holy Trinity]

Loan with obligation, loan from a rival (can't play in at least two big games), question marks over ties to Rogers deal, possible bad attitude, questionable ability/consistency, expensive, possibly blows our winger budget. Not a fan of this personally.

Previous loans from Chelsea - Barkley (good start then useless), Disasi (one good game, multiple disasters), Sancho (useless).

Let's also not forget that Chelsea shat the bed on KDB & Salah when they didnt rate and sold them on
40 million isn't expensive in my opinion.

I would love us to be taking 15-20 million puts if these foreign woderkids as we all would but its really not the emery way.

I wouldn't be surprised to see young and jja get more game time this season too

[Smithy]

I'm not hugely excited at the prospect of him coming in, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he's wearing our shirt.

However, there is another potential upside if he ends up performing well for us.  It will add significantly to Unai's "pull" as a manager, and for talented players looking for their next step.  Rogers goes from City reject to most expensive Englishman ever after less than 3 years under Unai, Rashford when from persona non-grata to Barcelona after 6 months with Unai. 

If Unai can get a tune out of Garnacho, it will not only be good for the team now, it will do wonders for our longer-term recruitment.

[Keeno]

He's certainly got the talent and I never realised just how fast he is. Over to you, Unai..

Watching this comp, which is long enough to show a good sample size of footage and not just the highlight reel goals i.e. the Everton overhead, you see how many players his dribbling draws towards him.

It's exactly what Rogers' dribbling threat did for us - Garnacho's style is even more close control-based and technical though.

Those mazy runs he makes from right to left/vice versa in the video you can see how they pull defences out of position and create space in behind e.g. slipping it into Buendia or McGinn - I feel as though Unai has targeted that attribute in particular as an asset in beating defensive blocks.

I'm actually not worried that much about his attitude - we have such a strong culture at the club he'll either buy in or be dropped. From a footballing perspective, the more I consider it and look at the less obvious attributes he shows in those clips, I think it could transform our ability to beat teams who are sat deep.

I think deployed within our structure, which is so well-drilled, he could be a game-breaker for us. Very excited to see how he and Manzambi link up.

[JUAN PABLO]

He's certainly got the talent and I never realised just how fast he is. Over to you, Unai..

I watched that video last night coming home on the train and didnt realise how  good he looks on the right wing too.

[olaftab]

Where is the actual evidence that Unai wanted him?

What does this mean sorry? Like, the usual journalists of some reliability have told us. What else could we have for proof? Emails between Unai and Olabe? Perhaps hidden camera footage?

So there is no actual evidence, there are no words from the man himself but we are being told to swallow it up that Unai wanted him.

[Dogtanian]

There was an article I saw saying that he is 'misunderstood', and he's actually quiet and polite in person.

Just found it, it's from Kieran Gill who is the Chelsea reporter for the Daily Mail;

"Garnacho arrived at Chelsea without a pre-season then played under three different head coaches; wasn’t a straightforward 2025-26. Cobham insiders describe him as shy/misunderstood/pleasant off the pitch. Just didn’t perform on it. Still only 22. See if Villa is better for him"

[eamonn]

Having a low cap of 10 games would be a waste of everyone's time. Yeah, we managed to wriggle out of the Elliott deal but it was a complete shambles. We never really found-out if he was good enough.

If the clause is purely appearance-based, you'd hope it be at least 20 games. The lad needs a proper run to show if he can do it. And wingers are probably the most substituted players on the pitch so his game time will likely be reduced as it is.