Liverpool has had many heroes this season. Darwin Núñez’s brace against Newcastle United in August was a huge moment, as was his late winner at Nottingham Forest. Wataru Endō has surprised everyone with how well he has done, and the Reds’ kids won the Carabao Cup.
There are plenty more examples as well, of course, and against Manchester City at the weekend, Jürgen Klopp will hope that even more players can step up and deliver when it matters most. However, not everyone who has played a big part in where Liverpool currently finds itself has been given enough praise.
Harvey Elliott has been sublime in the past few matches, where he has begun to get more regular chances to start. But even before then, he was quietly having his best season yet in a Liverpool shirt.
“No, Harvey’s not doing that. But we had talks anyway,” Klopp said during a press conference just 18 days ago when he was asked if the Liverpool number 19 had been knocking on his door for more appearances. Since then, plenty has changed.
“With Harvey, we always forget how young he is,” Klopp said. “He is just that long here, had a bad injury, before the injury he was first on the team sheet probably. Young players go through different moments in the early days of their career — flying, not flying. All young players do that. It’s completely normal in football in general, but the younger you are the more likely it is.”
While he was not starting games, though, Elliott was more than playing his part. Klopp’s side would have six fewer points without his game-winning contributions from the sidelines.
“Harvey was incredibly important and I am sure he knows that,” Klopp continued. “Is it that he wishes he starts each game? Yeah, probably he wants that. But when he came on he was brilliant, when he started he was not exactly the same.
“But it’s not a problem because he is young, he has time, and he will be there 100 per cent. It is not that he will be for the rest of his career the super-sub or whatever the public calls him.”
At the point of those comments, Elliott had only made three Premier League starts and was being mainly used off the bench rather than from the first whistle. But that role was working: he had just laid on two assists against Burnley to win the game for his side in the second half and had been doing that all season long.
