What Villa staff have said about Harvey Elliott amid lack of game-time on loan from Liverpool | OneFootball

Since leaving Liverpool for Aston Villa on an initial loan basis at the end of the summer transfer window, Harvey Elliott hasn’t enjoyed as much game-time as he’d have liked.

As per The Athletic, the deal contains an obligation to become permanent once he makes 10 appearances for Unai Emery’s side this season, with the fee cited at £35m by Merseyside sources and £30m by those from the Midlands.

However, nearly two months on from the move, he’s only featured five times for the Villans and, in their Europa League defeat to Go Ahead Eagles on Thursday, he was an unused substitute for the third match in succession (Transfermarkt).

Despite the frustrating lack of minutes on the pitch, though, Elliott has been making a positive impression off the pitch at Villa.

Villa staff have been impressed by Elliott

In an article for The Athletic, Jacob Tanswell noted how the 22-year-old has ‘impressed’ club staff with his ‘attitude and application, which chimes with Emery’s coaching staff’s uber-meticulous professional standards.

The reporter also mentioned how, after his debut for his new club against Everton last month, the England under-21 star ‘went out of his way to shake hands and introduce himself to journalists’.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a member of Villa staff said of Elliott: “He is a good lad, with a good head on young shoulders.”

(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Elliott would prefer minutes on the pitch to plaudits off it

The 22-year-old candidly admitted that his decision to leave Liverpool in search of more regular game-time was ‘selfish’, but unfortunately he’s found it hard to break into Emery’s starting XI, with just two appearances from the outset so far at Villa Park.

Even positive reviews of his early performances in the Midlands and a goal on his first start (against Brentford in the Carabao Cup) haven’t been enough for him to be given any more than four minutes on the pitch across the Villans’ four matches thus far in October.

The manager publicly called out Elliott when an enterprising pass in a 1-1 draw at Sunderland overshot its intended target, and it seemed a harsh rebuke for a player who was trying to make things happen for a team who’d been struggling to score in the opening weeks of the campaign.

Perhaps Villa’s defeat in Netherlands last night and the quick turnaround to hosting Manchester City on Sunday might prompt Emery to reshuffle the pack and play the Liverpool loanee from the start.

With our former no.19 unable to play at Anfied next weekend as he’s still technically on loan, he’ll be yearning for a decent chunk of action against Pep Guardiola’s side so that he won’t be left kicking his heels for another fortnight until his current team are in Europa League action again.

Elliott has had to be patient in recent weeks, but hopefully the positive impression he’s seemingly making behind the scenes will soon be rewarded with sufficiant game-time on the pitch.

You can watch Slot’s full pre-Brentford press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: