All those overpaid, morally bankrupt Premier League stars, going on strike, forcing through transfers and, crucially, disregarding agreements they entered into in good faith …
Aye, right.
Wonder what Harvey Elliott thinks about that power dynamic as the transfer window closed this week and he faced up to a wasted season, left in limbo, because of a clause in the loan agreement entered into by — checks notes — Liverpool and Aston Villa.
Or Dwight McNeil? The Everton winger had agreed a contract with Crystal Palace, completed a medical and, like Everton, was under the impression that a loan deal with an obligation to buy was fully agreed as he travelled to southeast London to complete the move, making the “radio silence” that followed both baffling and “heartbreaking” in equal measure.
How about Aarón Anselmino? Chances are you’ve never heard of the Chelsea defender, one of the 50-something signings made at Stamford Bridge since the BlueCo consortium’s takeover in 2022. He’s a 20-year-old defender who spent the first half of the season on loan at Borussia Dortmund, but was abruptly recalled without explanation last week. Footage on social media showed the 20-year-old in tears as he bade farewell to team-mates and staff. Five days later, as Chelsea’s player carousel began to pick up pace, he was farmed out to their (little) sister club Strasbourg.
Anselmino broke down in tears after being recalled by Chelsea from his Dortmund loan spell last week only to be shipped off to Strasbourg
Remind me where the power resides?
Now, forgive me for banging this drum again, but if you think player power is out of control it’s time to give your head a wobble. It’s worth pointing out, perhaps, that Elliott was allowed to leave Liverpool on deadline day last summer only after the record-breaking deal for Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak had been secured.
What has happened to the 22-year-old this season is tragic. The guy was player of the tournament in England Under-21’s European Championship triumph last summer. His stock was never higher. Given the vast expenditure on new talent at Anfield last summer, the time to move on felt right.
There was interest from clubs in the Bundesliga. With a season of regular football under his belt, earning a place in Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad this summer felt like a genuine possibility.
When Elliott joined Villa on loan, the ten appearances he required to trigger a £35million transfer felt like a foregone conclusion. For everyone involved. It did not take long, however, to see that Unai Emery saw it differently. After shunning Elliott for three months, the Villa manager confirmed at the start of January that Villa would not select him ten times to trigger the permanent transfer. Given that Elliott came on as an 89th-minute substitute for Liverpool away to Newcastle in August, he could not represent a third European club this season.
Elliott, who spent six years at Liverpool, is now facing a total write-off of a season at Villa after the Merseyside club chose not to recall him
GETTY
Now, you might think Liverpool — for whom Elliott made almost 150 appearances, many of which were impactful cameos from the bench — could have shown a modicum of sympathy, ended the nightmare for a player who spent six years at the club. There may not have been a recall clause in the loan agreement, but the deal could have been terminated. Yet Villa would have had to pay a fee, and didn’t want to. Liverpool would have had to waive it, and weren’t prepared to.
In one sense, Elliott is a victim of football’s financial regulations, and the cartwheels clubs are performing to comply with them nowadays. Elliott joining Villa on loan was merely a tool to delay his transfer until the following financial year. Be that as it may, clauses like this one, inserted to trigger a transfer or new contract, are routinely abused in football, at every level of the game.
McNeil, meanwhile, is by no means the first player to have the plug pulled on a transfer at the final hour. Failing to inform the player, though, is not something that happens all that often. The social media posts by McNeil and his girlfriend, Megan Sharpley, underlined that football is a law unto itself at times. Judging by the comments below the line on the Times website, sympathy was in short supply. Yes, he still has a (handsomely paid) contract with Everton. Yes, people miss out on jobs in every walk of life all the time. Just worth remembering that these guys, above all else, only want to play football and advance their careers.
McNeil and his partner Sharpley criticised Palace’s treatment of the player on deadline day
JAMES GILL – DANEHOUSE/GETTY IMAGES
Why any young player would join Chelsea to do that, meanwhile, is becoming increasingly hard to fathom. Chelsea paid Boca Juniors £15million for Anselmino in 2024. So far the 20-year-old’s first-team action amounts to the final two minutes of extra time in Chelsea’s 4-1 win against Benfica at the Club World Cup. Chelsea have attempted to spin their decision to recall the player by suggesting that Dortmund were making advances to sign Anselmino permanently. To which one might ask: and? He’s 18 months into a seven-year contract. Remind me where the power resides there?
It just so happened that in the same week Chelsea missed out on another 20-year-old defender, Jérémy Jacquet, who joined Liverpool instead. Chelsea had decided to recall another 20-year-old defender, Mamadou Sarr, from Strasbourg and needed a player to fill the hole. So Anselmino, whether he likes it or not, spends the rest of the season in Ligue 1, playing for a team in the Conference League rather than the Champions League.
The Chelsea project feels not only deeply misguided, in a certain light it can sometimes appear unethical too.
One more transfer from this month, which I think says something about why — very occasionally — some players try to take agency over their careers. Jorgen Strand Larsen, who joined Crystal Palace from Wolves for £48million on deadline day, was the subject of several bids by Newcastle United in late August, the highest of which totalled £55million. Wolves, after a winless start to the season, and with not enough time to secure a replacement, rejected the offers out of hand.
Strand Larsen didn’t kick up a fuss. Got his head down. Three days later, Newcastle signed Nick Woltemade. A day after that, Yoane Wissa arrived. Less than six months on — after a barren run in front of goal, while playing for one of the worst teams in Premier League history — instead of joining a club competing in the Champions League, Strand Larsen has joined one whose Premier League status is under threat.
Can you at least understand why some players are determined to take these opportunities when they present themselves?
Perhaps not. After all, Isak’s misfiring start to life at Anfield has been greeted, in some quarters, with thinly veiled glee. Yet two points, to my mind, go some way to vindicating the measures he took to push through that move.
The first is the broken leg and ankle damage he is nursing, after a tackle by Tottenham Hotspur’s Micky van de Ven in December. It could just as easily have happened playing for Newcastle. And then what? Would Liverpool, or any other European giant, have returned?
The second is the better-than-expected performances of Liverpool’s other new striker, Hugo Ekitike. Knowing what they know now — and the other areas of their team that now clearly need reinforcements — would Liverpool have tried to sign Isak again last month or in the summer?
Ask Elliott how capricious a football career can be.