Ki-Jana Hoever left Liverpool in 2020, in deal which soon saw Diogo Jota head the other way from Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Speaking on the Kenn7 podcast; Craig Watson, an agent that acted on behalf of the Dutchman during the move, was discussing the anatomy of a transfer and the intricacies involved for most deals.
Scott Elliott, the father of Harvey, asked a question about how long the youngster had wanted to leave Anfield and how quick the deal was made with the West Midlands club.
He answered: “It happened quickly. Initially a club wants a player and identifies that he can be ‘the one’, so they’ll dress it up and sell you the dream to bring you in which was fantastic and it was a really positive move bringing him from Holland to England.
“Then you get to watch inclusion, performances, where they’re playing, all these things. If you remember when he first come in, he started playing as a centre-back but he’s a right wing back.
“Because they had Trent Alexander-Arnold and Neco Williams, they tried to squeeze him over (to centre-back), they know his qualities and how good he is as a player so how can they infiltrate him into their structure?
“It just wasn’t happening, we could see it wasn’t working and from speaking with the player and after conversations he had with the club, players and staff – you can see he’s not feeling it and you build a picture up.
“At 19-years-of-age, he needs to play to develop and he’s supposed to be in the Premier League and one of the highest levels in the world, he’s getting bit parts but he’s still not quite that player because he has to develop.
“So we look at that and see he needs a sideways move, whether it’s still in England or in Europe, he needs to move sideways at this level to be able to move on again”.
It’s certainly a fast-forwarded version of events from December 2018 to September 2020 but the now 19-year-old did have somewhat of a whistle-stop tour of Merseyside.
An interesting insight to a side of the game that we don’t often see.
You can watch the comments from Watson (at 47:26) via Kenn7 on YouTube:
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