Harvey Elliott's time with Aston Villa has been nothing short of a disaster so far. The midfielder completed a season-long loan move from Liverpool over the summer in a deal that had an obligation to turn permanent for a reported fee of £35million. This fee also included sell-on and buy-back clauses.
It has also been reported that Elliott needs to make 10 appearances for that permanent transfer to be triggered.
Unfortunately, the midfielder has well and truly fallen out of favor under Unai Emery. Making just five appearances for the Villans, Elliott hasn't featured at all since October 2 when he played four minutes against Feyenoord in the Europa League. In fact, the 22-year-old has been left out of Emery's last three Premier League squads entirely. According to Fabrizio Romano, Elliott is unhappy at his lack of playing time.
This is clearly a tricky situation for Elliott to navigate, but it also puts Emery in an awkward position.
Unai Emery Will Be Frustrated At Harvey Elliott Saga
harvey elliott
There's no doubting Elliott's quality as a player, but he clearly doesn't feature in the plans of Emery. Starting just two times for Aston Villa — and only once in the Premier League — tells all that you need to know about his place in the Villa Park pecking order.
Speaking last month, Emery said of Elliott: "I am being very, very demanding myself to choose in each match the player to start and the players in 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 10 number 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.”
While Emery has admitted that Elliott is training well, it's clear that he's not offering enough to force his way into Villa's plans. With Emery facing pressure to succeed this term and guide Villa back into the Champions League, he deserved to be backed with players whom he wanted and would enhance his team. Unfortunately for him, the Villa board don't seem to have done that with a player who was regarded as one of the club's flagship arrivals.
Time will tell whether Elliott can force his way back into contention, but based on the evidence so far it feels unlikely that the Villans will be rushing to trigger the £35million to permanently sign a player who can't even force his way onto the bench at present.