Aston Villa manager Unai Emery has publicly asked Liverpool to lift the mandatory purchase clause in Harvey Elliott\u2019s loan agreement, warning that the 22-year-old risks spending the rest of the season on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
Elliott has made seven appearances since joining Villa, but he has been included in just two of the last 14 Premier League matchday squads. There had been hope the loan could be ended during the winter window, but Villa declined to pay the penalty fee needed to terminate the agreement.<\/p>\n
Emery has framed the issue as both sporting and financial. He said: “We have been fair because there are two ways: one way is a sport, the second is business,” and added, “We\u2019ll be fair in case, because we are trying it. I spoke a few times with Harvey.”<\/p>\n
Emery made clear he wants Elliott involved on the pitch. “Harvey, now I am opening the door to play with us, because he can help us. But it\u2019s not only on my side. The other side is Liverpool … If they are taking off the clauses [saying Villa] have to play matches and to buy him compulsory.”<\/p>\n
He reiterated his selection stance: “My sport decision is still there\u2014\u2018You are deserving to play, we need your qualities in the field, you are going to play.’ But in this case, the clauses are still there and now it is Liverpool, they have the key. And I told him it will be fair for him for Liverpool to take off this clause.” Emery also confirmed Villa first raised the idea of scrapping the mandatory purchase clause “three months ago,” but Liverpool have not agreed.<\/p>\n
Villa have defended their own position, mindful of contract terms even as Emery acknowledged the situation “damages” Elliott’s career. Elliott had spoken about his wish to remain at Liverpool, accepting the need to leave after struggling for minutes under Reds boss Arne Slot. Villa agreed a mandatory purchase clause that, under normal conditions, would trigger fairly easily, but the financial terms meant the arrangement has not served Elliott as planned.<\/p>\n
Liverpool are reluctant to reverse an agreement that would bring significant profit once the appearance threshold is met, leaving the player caught between sporting decisions and the business side of the loan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emery wants Liverpool to remove the compulsory buy clause so Elliott can play rather than sit unused<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,172],"tags":[1304],"class_list":["post-6607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-epl","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}