Unai Emery has frozen Harvey Elliott out of his plans in recent months.placeholder image
Unai Emery has frozen Harvey Elliott out of his plans in recent months. | Getty Images
Aston Villa’s big deadline day signing has barely kicked a ball in the last two months
Aston Villa’s dramatic 2-1 triumph over title favourites Arsenal marked the seventh consecutive league outing where Harvey Elliott has failed to even make the matchday squad after his puzzling loan move to Bodymoor Heath over the summer.
Elliott was one of just a few additions to the Aston Villa squad after a frustrating summer which was largely overshadowed by issues involving Profit and Sustainability (PSR) and Financial Fair Play (FFP).
Despite selling stars such as Jhon Duran, Moussa Diaby and Jacob Ramsey in recent windows, Villa were restricted in what they could do in terms of recruitment. Evann Guessand, a £34m signing from Nice, and Marco Bizot, a £500k addition from Brest, were the only players signed for fees over the summer. However, many were particularly excited about the signing of Elliott from Liverpool at the time of his arrival on deadline day as he strolled into Villa Park alongside Jadon Sancho.
Elliott had just won the Premier League with Liverpool, the European Under-21 Championship with Lee Carsley’s England squad, and had even won the Player of the Tournament in that particular summer after scoring five times, including once in the final against Germany.
Harvey Elliott’s move to Aston Villa has been a disaster
Elliott was expected to compete for a place in the England squad in the run-up to the World Cup, but instead finds himself much further down the pecking order than he’d ever have envisioned after a disastrous start to his loan move at Aston Villa.
While fellow Under-21 alumni, Elliot Anderson, Tino Livramento and Alex Scott have all progressed into the senior team, Elliott’s progress has stagnated. He’s played 174 minutes of football in total this season, and seven minutes of that came while he was still a Liverpool player.
Overall, he’s amassed just five appearances for Villa, scoring once in a League Cup defeat in which he started, but other than that hasn’t played more than 45 minutes in a single contest.
His only other start for Villa came in a 3-1 win where he was subbed off at half time as his replacement Emi Buendia contributed a goal and an assist in the same game. Elliott hasn’t even made the matchday squad for a league match since that victory despite not sustaining any form of injury.
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When Aston Villa signed Elliott on loan from Liverpool they included a £35m obligation to buy clause which comes into effect if the player reaches 10 or more appearances. This was seen as a formality before a ball was kicked at the start of the season, but now seems highly unlikely due to the way that Emery has frozen Elliott out of the team.
As it stands, Morgan Rogers, Buendia and Youri Tielemans are Villa’s preferred attacking midfield options while players like Sancho, John McGinn, Donyell Malen and Guessand are preferred as wide options.
Even George Hemmings, an 18-year-old midfielder from the academy, who’s still waiting for his debut, has been selected on the bench ahead of Elliott in a clear indication of the footballer’s future at Villa Park. This is so far working to Emery’s advantage with Villa winning nine of their last 10 matches, catapulting them into an unlikely title push.
Emery has not entirely ruled out signing Elliott, telling reporters last month: "We now have a lot of matches. We must focus on each match with the players we have now. "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."
The situation for Liverpool looks increasingly frustrating at present as Elliott is getting no form of first team football, preventing them from receiving the £35m figure they want for the player, while in turn seeing his price tag drop from the all-time high that it would have been at after his heroics in the Under-21 Euros. If he returns to Liverpool, his price tag will have dropped significantly. And after spending £450m in the summer, the Reds could be left fuming by the developments.
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