Harper was held back from going on loan by Bilic last season. He liked him and thinks he's got real potential. However, he also thinks he's generally a bit lazy and has a tendency to switch off. He wanted him where he could keep his eyes on him. 100% ITK. Beyond numbers I've no idea why he wasn't loaned out this season, unless the same rationale applied of course.
I get him being held back for one season, but you can go back 2 1/2 years and i was saying the same thing then. His only meaningful spell of football here came between feb/march to may in 2019, with it clesr by the end of that season that he had fell out of favour again.
By all means Bilic should be allowed to keep him for the Aug-Dec 2019 section of the season, but what's the excuse in Jan 2020 or Aug 2020, or quite frankly now.
I understand that loan moves don't give the ideal opportunity to everyone, but he desperately needs some meaningful football and we aren't providing it for him or Edwards, just like we didn't in the past for Leko, Roofe, Thorne, Wood (to a degree) and others who have gone on to play prem or championship football after leaving us.
I look at clubs like Brentford, like Leicester, like Southampton and Norwich and I see clubs who have clear strategies in both player recruitment, managerial hires and academy pathways. These clubs are all rising and the best 4 run clubs (lb for lb) in the country. We so far are 0 for 3 when comparing our own strategies. We need to fix it else we will just slip back to being a mid table championship team.