Official: Ontiveros to Huesca on loan

As was rumored earlier this week, Javi Ontiveros will officially join Huesca on loan for the 2020-2021 season. The deal is completely to Villarreal’s favor. Huesca will pay a 650k loan fee that has variables up to 1m (which to my mind helps defer some of the cost of loaning in Kubo). In addition, there is no purchase option involved which signals that the player remains firmly in Villarreal’s plans. All of the player’s wages will be paid by Huesca, and Villarreal’s good relationship with Huesca was described as ‘key’ to getting this deal done.

It may seem odd, but this move by us significantly improves my view of the Kubo loan. When that deal initially happened, there was some discussion about whether or not it was worth simply “developing Real Madrid’s players for them” by taking a loan with no option to buy. But, as is so often the case in football, there to a a trickle down effect. Yes, we are developing Kubo by giving him more minutes than he would have had with Real Madrid’s first team, but this also gives us the option of taking our own young attacker and giving him more minutes than he could have ever had this season playing for us somewhere else in the league. In addition, as Kubo has not gained a starting place yet, there seems to be no negative impact on the development of Samu Chukwueze.

All in all, for the loan fee we paid for Kubo we get to have our cake and eat it too. Javi Ontiveros gets a much deserved opportunity to shine in La Liga and grow his game, and we get to retain depth going into three competitions.

Best of luck to Javi and I will certainly be watching him at Huesca this season.