Harvey Elliott has only made five appearances for Aston Villa since joining from Liverpool
Aston Villa’s Harvey Elliott(Image: CameraSport via Getty Images)
Unai Emery believes the number 10 role will bring out the best in Harvey Elliott, but insists the midfielder still needs time to earn more minutes at Aston Villa.
Signed on an initial loan from Liverpool, Elliott will become an Villa player for £35 million once he makes 10 appearances for the club.
He has featured five times since joining on deadline day at the start of last month and scored Villa’s first goal of the season in a Carabao Cup tie against Brentford, which Villa eventually lost on penalties.
Elliott has only started two matches for Villa: against Brentford in that cup fixture, and then against Fulham, which ended in a 3-1 victory.
In Villa’s last six games in all competitions, Elliott has only featured twice and wasn’t called off the bench during the defeat to Go Ahead Eagles on Thursday night.
“I am being very demanding myself, to choose the right players to start and the players for the bench and substitutes,” Emery said of Elliott. “Firstly, it is always about trying to get the best performance collectively, through individual players.
“Harvey is a number 10 in our structure, in our shape. He plays some matches and there is still an adaptation to add himself in our structure and with the task we have.
“He is training well, and of course his commitment is very good as well, but his performances have not been enough until today.
“And at the same time, we have other players who can play as the number 10. They are performing well. I have different players. This is the main reason why he has not been playing minutes in the last matches.
“He has to continue working like he is doing in the training sessions and getting his confidence in the performances we need from him.”
Asked if Elliott could play out wide, Emery said: “His qualities, in my opinion, are more to play as a number 10. He can maybe play on the right side, trying to build our structure with him, like we do with John McGinn.
“We could, but maybe he will need more time than McGinn doing this role. At the beginning, I called him and we signed him thinking he would play as a number 10 and get the performance we need from him to play consistently.
“At the same time, Morgan can play there. Emiliano, John McGinn, and also Youri Tielemans played there before. Even the last 10 minutes against Tottenham, I played with Ross Barkley.
“It is because they can compete in this position. I will want to see his development in our structure, with his qualities to help us. We will give him minutes and chances to play in case his development is going well.”
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