GAME OVER as manager confirms disastrous Liverpool deal will be aborted | OneFootball

Harvey Elliott’s nightmare spell with Aston Villa looks set to end prematurely, and what that means for both Liverpool and the player has come to light.

Elliott left Liverpool last summer when joining Aston Villa on a season-long loan. The terms of the agreement contain a conditional obligation to buy worth around £35m, which would trigger if Elliott made 10 appearances in the Premier League.

Elliot did not want to leave Anfield, but did so for the benefit of his career amid a severe reduction of game-time under Arne Slot last term.

And on the back of being named the player of the tournament when England won the Under-21 Euros, much was expected of Elliott at Villa Park.

However, Unai Emery has featured Elliott extremely sparingly and of late, not at all. Elliott hasn’t played for Villa since September and hasn’t even made a matchday squad since October.

The playmaker was again omitted from Villa’s squad for the Europa League clash with Basel on Thursday. And speaking in a pre-match press conference, Emery all but confirmed Villa won’t sign Elliott outright at season’s end, and the player will be returned to Liverpool in January.

“We are speaking with him and about his situation. He is not here with us,” Emery said. “Hopefully we can get the best for him and the best for us.

“I respect him as a player and as a person. He is training well, but we have one circumstance with him.

“Hopefully we can get a solution for him to try to play consistently and try to continue in his career with us or not.”

“I have spoken with him two or three times about the situation we have with him,” Emery added. “Firstly, my decision and also the situation.

“He is on loan playing with us, but he is not definitely adding to us with a permanent contract.”

While not 100 percent definitive, the vast majority of reporters and publications have taken Emery’s quotes to mean Elliott is finished at Villa.

As mentioned, the expectation is he’ll return to Liverpool next month, meaning the conditional obligation to buy next summer will be avoided.

What next for Harvey Elliott?

Elliott is in a dire situation and having played for two different teams already this season, he cannot represent a third.

That means another loan spell in the winter window would serve no purpose. If Elliott is to feature at all in the second half of the season, it must be at Anfield if not Villa Park.

The potential sale of Mohamed Salah in January could give Elliott an opportunity to shine. After all, he would be Liverpool’s last left-footed attacker standing.

However, the only way Liverpool will sell Salah – and it’s by no means guaranteed the Egyptian goes – would be if a suitable replacement were signed in the same window.

In his favoured playmaking role, Elliott not only has Dominik Szoboszlai to contend with – who he failed to displace last season – but £116m man Florian Wirtz now too.

If Slot’s recent shift to a 4-4-2 containing a diamond in midfield is permanent, Elliott could serve as back-up to Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones who both shone in the victory over Inter Milan.

But in truth, that is clutching at straws and if Elliott is back on Merseyside next month, the likelihood is he spends most of the next five months warming the bench at best.

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In other news, a truly sensational report claims the root of Mohamed Salah’s frustrations is not Arne Slot, but Florian Wirtz who has ‘sent the Egyptian into a rage.’