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Loan signings are nothing new to Premier League clubs. They have served as a temporary fix for years, offering a solution that suits the needs of all parties. English top-flight clubs have signed more than 100 players in loan moves since the start of the 2022-23 season. A new trend, however, is the loan with obligations to make the move permanent. Advertisement There were seven of those in one guise or another during the summer window, including Harvey Elliott’s season-long loan from Liverpool to Aston Villa on deadline day. That will become a permanent move worth between £30million and £35m ($41m and $47m) if the England international plays 10 games for his new club. Loans leading to something more are the Premier League’s vogue trading method. Here, The Athletic looks at why. Not particularly, but recent seasons have seen a marked rise. Wolverhampton Wanderers (Matheus Cunha and Jorgen Strand Larsen) have benefited from arranging loans with an obligation to buy in the last two seasons. Bournemouth (Enes Unal, Luis Sinisterra, and Hamad Traore) have also gone down the same road. Those two clubs did it again this summer — Wolves landed Ladislav Krejci and Bournemouth brought in Alex Jimenez — but they were not alone. Villa’s move for Elliott was a loan with an obligation, as was Merlin Rohl’s switch to Everton, Burnley’s move for Florentino Luis, and Nottingham Forest’s signing of Douglas Luiz. Arsenal’s move to bring in Bayer Leverkusen defender Piero Hincapie might have been depicted as a loan with the option to buy, but since the German side can trigger a permanent switch, it effectively stands as a deal with obligations beyond the borrowing club’s control. Many loans have traditionally included the option for a lending club to buy the player at a set price, such as Aaron Ramsdale’s move to Newcastle United this summer, but an increasing proportion include an obligating event within the temporary contract that would lead to a permanent switch. The clause might be activated based on the number of appearances made (such as in the deal for Bournemouth and Jimenez), or whether a team survives relegation (Everton and Rohl) or goes on to win promotion. As Leeds United discovered to their detriment when signing Jean-Kevin Augustin in 2020, there is no way out once that obligating event has been triggered. Attempts to back out of that deal were futile and Leeds were later ordered to pay RB Leipzig £18m in a costly legal defeat. Advertisement Financial health, primarily. Rather than signing off on a permanent transfer and seeing the attached costs come to their door immediately, loaning a player with an obligation to buy delays the payments. The can is kicked down the road and, in the age of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR), that matters. The transfer fees of most players loaned with obligations in the last month will not be recorded in the lending club’s current accounting period, an obvious benefit for anyone running out of headroom in the financial rules. Arsenal would be an obvious example of that. More than £200m had already been spent remodelling Mikel Arteta’s squad this summer before the chance arose to sign Hincapie. A permanent deal this summer at £45m would have been difficult, even if the costs were spread out over the length of his contract through amortisation. Bournemouth are another club that had ran out of room for PSR this summer, leading to a window that brought a profit of £85m. The late move for Jimenez this week from Milan could have been a permanent transfer, but it was decided that a loan with obligations to buy for £17m after making a set number of appearances would be more beneficial. One thing to stress, though, is that the player’s signing costs must be included in a club’s accounts from the point an obligation to buy is triggered. For example, should the clause be 10 appearances and that landmark is hit at the end of October, the amortisation costs of that player signing would be included, pro rata, from that point onwards. It is not something that can be pushed back until next summer because the deal is considered done from the moment a clause is triggered. Once a deal is certain to be made permanent, clubs must recognise it as such. Advertisement It is why Villa will have to include the sums of signing Elliott from the point he plays his 10th game, but given their greatest headache is with UEFA, the European governing body whose assessment period for its ‘squad cost rule’ runs from January to December, delaying those costs by a couple of months is still relevant. Making survival the obligating event can be a workaround. Most Premier League clubs will not be guaranteed another year in the top flight until April or even May, so the loan player that becomes a permanent signing in the event of avoiding relegation would not be recognised for accounting purposes until then. That makes their fee a comparatively minor addition to the books filed in the summer, rather than a significant one, adding a couple of months of amortisation instead of a full season. Loaning with an obligating clause can also offer a get-out in worst-case scenarios. Wolves signed Carlos Forbs on loan from Ajax last summer in a deal the club said would “automatically become permanent should certain clauses be triggered”. The winger, though, started just one Premier League game for Wolves and was returned at the end of last season. Absolutely not. Loans with obligations bring a level of surety to the selling club, too. Manchester United’s decision to cut their losses on centre-forward Rasmus Hojlund last month resulted in a season-long loan move to Napoli, including an obligation to buy should certain conditions be met. A £5. 2m loan fee and then a probable £38m permanent transfer next summer means the obligation exceeds the remaining amortised cost of Hojlund’s move to Old Trafford and ensures no PSR loss will be made. A loan with an option to buy would not have brought the same guarantees. A serious injury, for example, would not necessarily scupper a permanent move as it might a straightforward loan. Bournemouth also offloaded Sinisterra (to Cruzeiro) and Traore (to Marseille) on loans with obligations this summer, effectively cancelling out the move for Jimenez. Advertisement Then there is consideration for the players, who are given a greater degree of security. “You’ll find players who join a club on loan are not always treated the same, ” says one agent, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect working relations. “I’m not sure they always get the same level of care, especially if they fall out of favour. A loan with an obligation is very different because the club will know this is likely to turn into a permanent deal. They treat you as one of their own because the chances are you will be. ” Loans that effectively amount to permanent deals can be the solution to many problems. (Top photo: Harvey Elliott and Douglas Luiz; by Mike Hewitt/Eddie Keogh/Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle