Harvey Elliott faces an uncertain future at Aston Villa.placeholder image
Harvey Elliott faces an uncertain future at Aston Villa. | Getty Images
Harvey Elliott faces an uncertain future at Aston Villa after what has so far been a disastrous loan move
Premier League champions Liverpool are not planning to recall Harvey Elliott from his loan spell at Aston Villa this January despite his lack of gametime, according to The Athletic.
Elliott, who featured 28 times in Liverpool’s title winning season last year, was signed by Aston Villa on transfer deadline day in what was viewed at the time as a real exciting signing for the West Midlands club. The package for the 22-year-old included a £35m option to buy clause, while it was also reported to have sell-on clauses and buy-back clauses which could benefit the Reds further down the line.
Villa beat off competition from RB Leipzig for Elliott's signature, while the former England Under-21 international rejected interest from West Ham and Fulham earlier in the summer window to complete the move.
Harvey Elliott transfer latest
It’s believed that Elliott needs to feature 10 times for Aston Villa before his permanent move to the West Midlands comes into effect.
The versatile youngster isn’t too far away from this, he’s featured seven times across all competitions since arriving, but intriguingly hasn’t made a single competitive appearance since a four-minute outing against Feyenoord in the Europa League back in early October.
Overall, he’s only started one Premier League match for The Lions and has played a combined total of 96 minutes of football for Aston Villa. He’s not been used in the league since the end of September and has failed to make the squad entirely since a 2-1 victory over Tottenham where he was an unused substitute on the 19th October.
It represents a huge fall from grace for a player that featured heavily under Jurgen Klopp as recently as the 2023/24 season, and was highly sought after due to winning the European Under-21 Championship and the Player of the Tournament award with England.
What’s gone wrong for Harvey Elliott at Aston Villa?
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what’s gone wrong for Elliott at Aston Villa. He’s not really had any serious injuries since arriving at Bodymoor Heath and has usually been available for selection but hasn’t really been given the chance to shine for Unai Emery.
He’s got plenty of competition around him for both the central attacking midfield and right wing spot due to the presence of Morgan Rogers, Jadon Sancho and Emi Buendia, but was used much more at Liverpool where the competition for places was much more fierce.
"We now have a lot of matches. We must focus on each match with the players we have now," Emery said last week, before again leaving Elliott out of the squad for Sunday's win over Wolves.
"We are not thinking about the transfer window in January. He is one of our players and hopefully he can help us.
"Then, we are going to decide. Firstly, there are other players performing very well. This is the first argument of why he is not playing."
Continue Reading