Frank McAvennie has suggested it’s likely Harvey Elliott won’t earn as many minutes as he’s currently enjoying once key men return to the fold for Liverpool from injury.
At the moment, the club’s available options on the right of the midfield three in Jordan Henderson and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are both set for a lengthy stay on the sidelines, with the former having recently joined the injury room after sustaining a hamstring injury in the 2-1 win over Newcastle United.
“Jurgen Klopp will not be happy that he’s got to play him all the time. He’s only a young boy and he’ll be wanting to monitor his development. The quicker they get players back from injury the better,” the former Celtic man told Football Insider.
“He’ll become a better player just from training with these boys every day. I think he’ll be closer to the first team than he has been for a long time because of the performances he’s put in. I think he’ll be part of the first team squad no matter what.
“Whether he plays every week I’m not sure. Once everyone is back and playing, Jurgen will pick his games rather than being forced to play him all the time. They need the experience back.”
The young Englishman has made a solid start to the campaign despite being thrust into a somewhat dysfunctional midfield amid heavy injuries in the department in question.
Questions, of course, remain over whether the ‘tremendous’ (as Rio Ferdinand put it) youngster will hold on to his place once our skipper is back in team training and Thiago Alcantara is capable of playing a big chunk of minutes in games once more.
One would imagine it will be hard for Klopp to sit his captain on the bench, which likely means that Elliott will be the one to withdraw, albeit remaining in the matchday squad.
It would seem something of a shame, though, given that the former Fulham Academy graduate has been arguably our best midfielder at the start of the campaign and would certainly function far better working alongside teammates that weren’t so noticeably out of form.