Liverpool have a Harvey Elliott conundrum after decisive FA Cup strike

There are seasons when Liverpool fans would not have wanted to miss a game, and this is not one of them. In a troubled campaign, one Liverpool supporter has a unique distinction. In the sort of scenario few envisaged six months ago, the team’s only ever-present is boyhood fan Harvey Elliott. Twenty-nine matches have brought 29 appearances from a player who is still a teenager for another 10 weeks. He created at least one more game with a wonderful winner against Wolves to progress Liverpool to the FA Cup fourth round.

Elliott did not make the matchday squad for the FA Cup final Liverpool won in May. Perhaps the best goal of a brief career took them into this season’s fourth round. A chest-beating celebration was an indication of what it meant. By his own admission, he had been among the recent underachievers. He was horribly at fault for a goal at Brentford. “Personally, I have felt I have not been at my best form after the World Cup,” he said. Liverpool had their character questioned after the capitulation at Brighton. Jurgen Klopp had said insisted he would not be too loyal to the stalwarts of past glories and instead ended up suggesting Elliott may have played his way into the team against Chelsea on Saturday.

He was a surprise selection for their last visit to Anfield, in August 2021. It was a sign of precocity that he was arguably man of the match then. If he has been a man for every match this season, it is in part because of the lengthy injury list that has sometimes left him the last man, or boy, standing; floundering at times because, from Napoli to Brentford, there were matches he felt miscast for, games where defensive deficiencies counted for more than his prowess in possession. When Trent Alexander-Arnold has been shielded by a fellow youthful technician, Liverpool have lacked the balance required on the right. They have been too open.

When Elliott was charged with replacing Mohamed Salah, rather than replicating Jordan Henderson’s contribution, however, he excelled. Spared his now usual role in midfield, playing as a winger, his goal was Salah-esque, striding forward from his own half, letting fly from distance. “An exceptional goal,” Klopp said. “Harvey saw something not a lot of people saw. If I had been a goalie I would not have expected that.”

Elliott was encouraged by a colleague 18 years his senior, hearing the voice of experience, James Milner, urging him to shoot. “Maybe he can encourage me a bit more to shoot because it definitely worked,” he said.

For scorer and manager alike, there was a significance to the fact he found the net. Elliott’s goals can be special, but, and while he has struck twice in the Champions League, they have been rarities in the Premier League, with one accompanied by a lone assist. “I have been judged a bit on assists and goals and it is something I have been working on,” Elliott said.

Yet it forms part of the Elliott conundrum. Judging Liverpool’s midfielders on goals and assists has long been unfair, because they are charged with bringing more solidity than productivity or creativity. He, though, is a flair player who is often shoehorned into a functional footballer’s role, crowbarred into the team either because of injuries to others or because Klopp admires his talent. But as a winger, which he initially appeared, he enters a different sphere. There were glimpses of trickery. There was the decisive strike. “Harvey, from that position you need to score goals for us; that is clear,” Klopp said.

This was just a fifth in 49 Liverpool appearances, though many of those were in midfield or cameos. This was a rare start as a forward. His ability on the ball has long been apparent, even without finding the finishing touch. His aptitude for the work off it has felt more of an issue. Klopp liked the sight of him leading the pressing game.

“Both wingers plus the No 9 and had to defend proper and defend compact and whoever does that is more than welcome to start wherever,” said Klopp. If injuries have meant he was never afforded a rest in midfield, the absences of Roberto Firmino, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota were reasons why he was pressed into service in the front three. With a Salah-shaped roadblock to a more regular berth there, his reinvention as a midfielder may be prioritised. “When he plays well, I like him anywhere,” Klopp said. “That is easy.”

Competition for places may make it harder, especially if Liverpool buy big in midfield in the summer. But if Elliott has done an imperfect impersonation of Henderson this season, he deputised for Salah in a style worthy of the Egyptian. It took Liverpool through without resolving the question of where his future lies.