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What Arne Slot would give to have Harvey Elliott available this weekend.
That’s a remarkable statement in many senses, not least because the 22-year-old is a Liverpool player. But instead of being an option for Slot to call upon at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday, Elliott will instead be twiddling his thumbs at home.
That is not what Liverpool, Aston Villa or Elliott envisaged when he departed for the Midlands on deadline day to complete a loan move, which included an obligation to make the deal permanent next summer for £35 million ($47M). Yet, there’s now little expectation of that happening.
Unai Emery’s reluctance to select Elliott has left the Liverpool loanee in no-man's land. He has played just five times for Villa, the last of which came on Oct. 2.
“We are speaking with him and about his situation. He is not here with us,” Emery explained last week ahead of Villa’s Europa League clash against Basel.
“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,” he 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.”
Evidently, there’s little desire on Villa’s part to trigger the terms that will make the transfer permanent. Reports have indicated that he needs to play 10 league games for that to materialize, although Liverpool.com understands that is not the case.
The obvious solution would be for Elliott to depart Villa and join another club on loan. There was no shortage of Premier League interest in the midfielder last summer.
However, FIFA’s rules stipulate that he cannot represent three European sides in one season, and having made two appearances for Liverpool in the early weeks of the campaign, that rules out a January relocation.
As the winter window approaches, the solution is simple: Elliott either remains at Villa or heads back to Liverpool.
Clearly, the Villans won’t stand in the player’s way if he wishes to return to his parent club, but complicating matters is the lack of a release clause inserted into the loan arrangement, which is customary in the majority of season-long deals.
Then again, nobody expected Elliott to return to Anfield. He certainly didn’t, as evidenced by his emotional social media farewell post.
Liverpool.com understands that for Elliott’s loan at Villa to be cut short, new terms would have to be negotiated with Liverpool. Likely, that would involve Villa paying a small given the side currently sitting third in the Premier League table would no longer be burdened with Elliott’s wages.
That said, a Liverpool return appears to be in everyone’s best interests. Villa would be free of that transfer obligation, Elliott would likely play more minutes on Merseyside, and Slot would have an extra player to call upon for the remainder of the campaign.
The last point may be most salient. The Liverpool head coach bemoaned the number of absentees last week and claimed he had only 13 outfield players with Premier League experience to call upon. The Dutchman is in desperate need of additional attacking options.
While Slot was reluctant to start Elliott in high-profile games last season, he did regularly introduce the former Fulham man from the bench. Elliott made 28 appearances for Liverpool in the 2024/25 campaign, despite missing over two months with a foot injury.
He also played a significant role when introduced as a substitute against Lille, Paris Saint-Germain, Southampton, and in the Carabao Cup final against Newcastle United.
That Liverpool included a buy-back clause in the move to Villa is another indication of how well regarded the diminutive left-footer is at the AXA Training Centre.
His services would certainly be appreciated on Saturday as Liverpool travels to Spurs without an obvious right winger. Mohamed Salah is in Morocco, Dominik Szoboszlai is a doubt, Jeremie Frimpoing is ruled out, and Slot remains unconvinced by Federico Chiesa.
Elliott won’t be the solution this weekend, but his contribution in the second half of the campaign could prove invaluable.
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