Unai Emery has expressed sympathy for Harvey Elliott over the 23-year-old’s ill-fated loan move from Liverpool to Aston Villa.
He made the move to the Midlands eight months ago with a view to the deal becoming permanent once he’d made 10 Premier League appearances for his loan club. With the season almost over, he’s played just nine times for the Villans across all competitions.
Henry Winter lamented it as a ‘sad waste of a year‘ for the England under-21 international, who Arne Slot has confirmed will return to Anfield for the start of pre-season.
Ahead of the Premier League fixture between the two teams on Friday night, Emery was asked about Elliott’s write-off of a season at Villa Park, and the Spaniard admitted that the situation hasn’t worked out for any of the parties involved.
He said (via Birmingham Mail): “To now explain about the reason for this decision is very difficult, or it is easy, but it is not the moment. Of course, it is something embarrassing for everyone involved.
“My apologies for Harvey Elliott is every day in my mind, but it is [about] responsibility. We have our responsibility and Liverpool have their responsibility. It is something, as a human and as a person, how the season has gone has been difficult.”
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There have been no winners from this regrettable episode, and the player himself has been by far the biggest loser from how it’s transpired.
Inexplicably cast aside by Arne Slot, he wasn’t given a fair chance at Villa either before Emery – whose treatment of the 23-year-old has been criticised – froze him out and refused to turn to him even when his squad was decimated by injuries during a season which has seen them reach a European final.
Elliott will head back to Anfield having had precious little football over the past few months (284 minutes in this campaign), and seemingly little prospect of reviving his Liverpool career for as long as the Dutchman remains in charge, considering how rarely he played under the current Reds boss.
Both sides have tried to shift the onus onto the other to take action if they were unhappy with how sparsely the player has been used, with that lack of accountability doing him no favours whatsoever.
Ideally he’d come back to Merseyside and play an important part for his parent club next term, but realistically his long-term future lies elsewhere. Wherever he ends up in 2026/27, we just hope he’s getting plenty of minutes and making up for an awful lot of lost time through no great fault of his own.
