Manchester City have made an offer to buy Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest.
This news coming via an exclusive from The Athletic.
They report that Nottingham Forest have turned down this opening offer but it is taken for granted that Manchester City will be coming back with an improved bid.
Elliot Anderson was bought for £35m from Newcastle United at the end of June 2024.
The Newcastle United owners allowing a situation to develop whereby it was suddenly revealed in mid-June 2024, that pure profit from player sales of more than £50m had to be made by the end of the financial year (30 June 2024) or else United would break the three-year PSR limits.
In the end Elliot Anderson sold for £35m because as a homegrown developed talent, all of that £35m could go into the 2023/24 accounts as instant pure profit. Whilst United’s Yankuba Minteh was sold for £33m, having been bought for only £7m (12 months earlier), his book value at the time meant that the vast majority of that £33m could also be banked as instant profit to go in the 2023/24 NUFC accounts.
Two years on and Minteh is one of Brighton’s best and most valuable players, whilst Anderson for sure is Forest’s most valuable.
The Athletic report that their understanding is that Nottingham Forest see no reason why Elliot Anderson should be valued at any less than the £105m that Arsenal paid West Ham for Declan Rice in July 2023.
It seems incredible that the Newcastle United owners and those running the club on a day to day basis, CEO Darren Eales and Amanda Staveley who had a management contract to help run the club at the time, allowed such a nightmare scenario to develop AND then didn’t even ensure that a sell-on clause was included in the Elliot Anderson sale, nor you would imagine in Minteh’s sale either.
It looks a knocking bet now that Manchester City will buy Elliot Anderson and just a case of how much they will end up giving Nottingham Forest in terms of a huge profit made on the former Newcastle United midfielder.