Arne Slot says it is a positive sign that Harvey Elliott is frustrated with his lack of game time this season but it is all part of being part of a squad filled with quality players.
The English U/21 international has only played a full 90 minutes on two occasions this season, both which came in domestic cup competitions.
The most minutes he has played in the league was against West Ham on the 29th of December (16) and 43 league minutes in all, albeit he missed two months of action with a fractured foot sustained on international duty in early September.
That meant that Elliott missed an opportunity to make an early impression in the thoughts of the new man in charge and his absence gave players such as Curtis Jones and Dom Szoboszlai a good chance to impress.
Elliott who was a firm favourite of Jurgen Klopp has been linked with moves to Brighton and Borussia Dortmund in recent times and speaking to the assembled media (per the Echo) ahead of the clash with Brentford this afternoon, said he understands fully the situation that the midfielder is in.
“The last thing you asked (Elliott's game-time) is completely sure.
"It would be weird if he would come to me and say: 'I'm so happy with the playing time I have at the moment'. But the first thing you ask me (transfer speculation) is the same answer every single time.
“We don't talk about rumours where people talk about players who are in contract talks or if we are linked with players or our players are linked with other clubs. That he wants to play more he should because if he was happy with his current situation that would be the wrong thing.
“But every single day he is working as hard as he can. But like Federico [Chiesa] - because many people ask about him, who is in competition with Mo Salah - Harvey is in competition with four or five very good midfielders, you may agree with me or not."
While Elliott played the full game against Accrington Stanley last Saturday, he did not see any gametime in the midweek clash against Nottingham Forest and Slot explained his reasoning.
“I like the way we played in the last 20-25 minutes at Forest so that for me is not a reason to change. If you want to bring that moment back, we played quite well in the first hour but we didn't create a lot then I made a substitution."
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