🔴 EOTK Insider Opinion: Harvey Elliott should NOT be loaned out - look at Trent & Sterling 🤷♂️✍️
The time is ripe for the teenager to make his mark
There are three things Liverpool must ensure by the time the first ball is kicked in the club’s opening clash of the domestic season against Norwich City.
1) Sign a replacement for Georginio Wijnaldum
2) Secure another effective backup option for the front-three
3) DO NOT loan out Harvey Elliott
We’ll let you decide amongst yourselves on how best to order the first two of these items in terms of priority.
Nonetheless, there is a viable argument for suggesting that we should capitalise on the Fulham Academy graduate’s superb loan spell in the Championship with more of the same next term.
Having proved his capabilities arguably lie beyond the realm of the second division, however, a more suitable destination would be with a top-flight outfit, potentially one of the newly promoted English sides.
If given the chance, one might imagine Daniel Farke would bite Jurgen Klopp’s hand off to get Elliott in Norwich’s first-XI for the 2021/22 Premier League campaign.
The German’s compatriot has already demonstrated his keeness to invest in young talent, as has been most recently demonstrated by the Canaries’ swoop for Chelsea starlet Billy Gilmour, who impressed for Scotland during the European Championship.
Most relevantly, as former golden boot-winner Kevin Phillips has noted, the forward would potentially be guaranteed a more regular supply of minutes with another club than he might at Anfield.
“Another year of regular football will do him the world of good,” the ex-Sunderland star told Football Insider.
“I cannot see him playing regularly for Liverpool next season and he would probably be used predominantly in the cup games.
“He needs to keep playing and keep developing. He had a great season down at Blackburn.
“I definitely seeing him going back out on loan, 100 per cent.”
Following a remarkable season in the Championship, which effectively blew away the teenager’s naysayers and made clear his level already lies well and beyond that of the second division of English football in one fell swoop, it couldn’t be clearer that the player is ready for a proper challenge.
But are his chances of first-team football at Liverpool as slim as Phillips has suggested?
One obvious argument to be made is that the 18-year-old would be coming up against one of the most formidable forward trios in Europe in Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino.
That’s not even considering prior summer signing Diogo Jota lying in wait, itching for a chance, nor whomever we presumably look to bring in to bolster our options, with Donyell Malen heavily linked of late.
To say the competition for a first-team spot will be fierce would be a huge understatement.
That all being said, we’re talking about a player many barely handed more than a passing glance at before scoffing when his loan spell with Blackburn Rovers was announced.
It was assumed that the physicality of the Championship would bring Liverpool’s high-flying prospect crashing back down to earth but he’s shown no signs of meeting a similar fate to that of Icarus just yet.
The prospect of competing for minutes with the likes of Salah and co. will certainly bring him closer to the sun than ever before, of course, though we’d be remiss not to point to prior Academy talents that broke the mould.
Aged 18 and 17 respectively, both Trent Alexander-Arnold and now Manchester City star Raheem Sterling carved a path into the first-team, the latter registering 36 appearances across all competitions in the season that followed his senior debut. The former racked up a more modest 12 in his maiden senior season.
Our beloved fullback, of course, plays a fundamentally different role to that of Elliott.
Further to that point, barring Luis Suarez really, Sterling had little in the way of competition for a first-team spot, with the likes of Fabio Borini, Stewart Downing and Andy Carroll available for selection at the time.
The challenge ahead of our promising starlet arguably exceeds that faced by our prior Academy graduates, but if he can manage to rack up between 12 and 36 appearances across all competitions for the first-XI this coming season, we’d have to argue that he’s on the right track to making himself a mainstay in this Liverpool team.
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