Paradoxes are a natural occurrence in nature. For example, it can be a warm, summer day when rain drops begin to fall. In Liverpool’s current moment, Harvey Elliott is easily the most highly valued young player while also finding themselves completely on the outside of Arne Slot’s plans for the future of Liverpool Football Club.
Elliott, a mainstay under Jurgen Klopp and a player most fans expected might see much more time on the field this past season, saw his minutes heavily curtailed under Arne Slot. And it wasn’t until it became clear that Liverpool were out of reach for the title that the Young Red finally got major minutes. When you throw in Liverpool’s pursuit and eventual signing of Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz, one could say the writing is on the wall for Harvey Elliott.
For his part, though, he’s doing his best to make the decision to move on as difficult to make on Liverpool’s brain trust as can be by showcasing to them, and all of Europe, just what he’s capable of as he lead England to the U21 Euro Championship. “Lead” is perhaps the type of word that might have lost some meaning given the way we writers tend to throw it around, but there’s one concrete way we can note that Elliott’s contributions were, to a word, singular: he was awarded the Player of the Tournament, scoring five goals across all matches.
It’s unlikely that he stays given how things played out last season - and even the determined mind of a boyhood Liverpool fan had to give way as the transfer window opened and Elliott seemed to be more accepting that he’d need to go elsewhere to find more consistent playing time. But given how Curtis Jones used this very same tournament in 2023, one that Harvey played at, to stake a claim to a regular place in the squad, I’m a bit hopeful. Perhaps Arne Slot saw something he hadn’t seen in Harvey over these past couple of weeks. Maybe he’s seeing that there’s minutes to be had, even in a crowded midfield, given all of the matches on offer.
It’s entirely possible that what’s actually happened is that Elliott will have played himself into the imaginations of other managers and thus increased the value of his transfer fee. But I will choose to keep dreaming that he’ll be able to realize all of his dreams here, at Anfield.