Harvey Elliott on His Season So Far — and on What’s to Come

Prior to Liverpool’s friendly against AC Milan today, Harvey Elliott spoke to Liverpoolfc.com about a number of things, but especially his thoughts on the season so far.

Elliott has already made a major impact for the Reds this season, but hasn’t had much time to reflect in the midst of it all:

[My thought process has] just been about what I could’ve done better throughout the season. Me and my dad always go through things after each and every game, we always re-watch it and look back on what things I could’ve done better. For me, it was just a moment of reflection in terms of how I could have influenced the game more or what I could’ve done in different situations. But on top of that, I’m happy. To be able to play 22 games, to contribute a few goals, it’s always nice to do it for your boyhood club. There’s no better place to do it than at Liverpool.

For me, there’s positive sides as well – but at the same time I need to think about what I need to improve on for the rest of the season. There’s a lot of things I need to do. This is just the start of myself [going] to that extra level. It’s just down to me to make these adjustments in my game, to focus on working on the things that I need to improve on. As I said, that’s what me and my dad have been doing since the start of the season – we’ve been watching things back, learning. Hopefully I can take it into the remainder of the season and apply it.

Despite the lack of space for reflection in the middle of a challenging season, the young player does feel his season has been a positive so far:

I think the start of last season compared to this season, there was a big change. Obviously I had my injury last season but when I came back it was a bit up and down, in my opinion, in my performances, in training. I wasn’t really feeling 100 per cent. But this season I feel like I’m back to my normal self, back to how I was last season at the start – just free to go and play football, to enjoy it and just to go and express myself, show the world what I can do and who I am. I’m just very thankful for the opportunities obviously given to me. There’s many more to come hopefully and it’s just down to me to take each and every one, to perform to the best of my ability and show the team, show the world, show the fans that I’m able to be in the team at such a young age.

Though Elliott sees a lot of positives, he knows that the second half of the season is going to be a challenge, both personally and for the squad more broadly:

But at the same time, it’s going to be tough. Competition is still going to be there, we have a lot of players. It’s nice for the injured players to come back – we’ve got a fair few players back now. It’s just more competition, which is going to keep everyone on their toes and only healthy for the team, thinking in the back of your mind, ‘I need to perform each and every game and every training session.’ No-one really slacks. For me, it’s going to be a big second half of the season. For the remainder of the season, we’re going to need each and every person. There’s so many games coming up and every person is going to get their opportunity. We just need to make sure that we’re a team and if we’re called upon make sure that we go out and perform to the best of our ability and just perform for the badge.

The Reds season resumes against Manchester City on Thursday, December 22nd.