Scott Parker responds to question on how to beat Liverpool
Harvey Elliott played his part in Liverpool’s title success last season but after a good summer, he has failed to find his feet at Aston Villa.
Richard Hughes was a busy man in the summer as he presided over the sort of rebuild in Liverpool’s squad that nobody saw coming.
There were fears about Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah leaving until they signed new contracts only for them to sign lengthy extensions. The players who had to be replaced were the fringe players who wanted more game time or those who were approaching a pivotal stage in their respective deals and maybe wanted more money or longer terms than the club were willing to offer.
Harvey Elliott hits new low at Aston Villa
One player whose stock was high after a successful summer was Harvey Elliott, the player of the tournament for England in the European Under-21 Championships in which he was a standout performer. Hopes of returning to Anfield and of playing a bigger role under Arne Slot were soon dashed though when Florian Wirtz arrived for £116m pushing Elliott even further down the pecking order.
A loan move to Aston Villa was well structured in that if he made 10 appearances a £30-35m obligation to buy clause would be triggered. That Liverpool inserted both a buy back and cancellation clause highlights how highly they still rated the young playmaker. After being snubbed in the Europa League against Go Ahead Eagles with Villa needing a goal, things have gone from bad to worse for Elliott. For their win against Man City, Elliott wasn’t even in the matchday squad.
What has Unai Emery said about Elliott being dropped
Unai Emery has addressed specifically the lack of minutes and action being seen by Elliott and it looks like the Villa boss has been far from impressed by what he has seen so far when the Liverpool loaner has been given a chance, via The Independent: "I am being very, very demanding myself to choose in each match the player to start and the players on the bench and the subs players, and firstly is always trying to get the best performance collectively, through individual players.
"Harvey is a 10 number in our structure, in our shape, and he plays some matches and there is still adaptation to add himself individually in our structure, the task we have. Of course, he is training well, and his commitment is being very well as well, but his performance was not enough (up to this point). At the same time, we have other players who can play as a 10 and they are performing well, and I have different players.
"This is the main reason he is not playing the last matches minutes, but he has to continue working like he is doing in the training session and of course getting his confidence in the performance we need through him." What doesn’t help Elliott is that Villa have now started winning league games and the chances of forcing his way into the manager’s plans are even slimmer, regardless of what he does on the training pitch.
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