Unai Emery makes blunt Harvey Elliott admission as £35m Liverpool transfer trigger close

Harvey Elliott has made only two starts since moving to Aston Villa on loan from Liverpool and it appears would currently not be forthcoming under Unai Emery

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery says Harvey Elliott's performances have not been good enough to get in his team. The Liverpool loanee has been an unused substitute in each of the last three games for Villa, including Thursday night's surprise Europa League defeat to Dutch minnows Go Ahead Eagles.

Elliott has made just five appearances in a loan deal that will become permanent when he makes it into double figures. But just two have come from the start and in one of those he was withdrawn at half-time.

Emery said: "I am being very, very demanding myself to choose in each match the player to start and the players on the bench and the subs players, and firstly is always trying to get the best performance collectively, through individual players.

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"Harvey is a 10 number in our structure, in our shape, and he plays some matches and there is still adaptation to add himself individually in our structure, the task we have.

"Of course, he is training well, and his commitment is being very well as well, but his performance was not enough (up to this point).

"At the same time, we have other players who can play as a 10 and they are performing well, and I have different players.

"This is the main reason he is not playing the last matches minutes, but he has to continue working like he is doing in the training session and of course getting his confidence in the performance we need through him."

Elliott, who helped England Under-21s to European Championship glory in the summer, can also play wide on the right, but Emery is reluctant to use him there.

"His quality, in my opinion, is to play No 10," the Spaniard added.

"He can maybe play wide right, like John McGinn, but he will need more time.

"At the beginning I signed him thinking him to play No 10 and getting the performance and getting him to play consistently for us. There are other players who can play there."

Elliott left Liverpool for Villa on transfer deadline day, completing a loan switch with a £35m obligation to make it permanent at the end of the campaign - providing he has made 10 appearances for the club.

The boyhood Red said in September after returning to Merseyside with his new club for a 0-0 draw at Everton: "Itwas very difficult. First of all the decision to leave and then on top of that to find the best club.

"There were a few difficult decisions I had to make. I had to sit down and speak to the team and go into a lot of detail, but it was the decision that was made and the decision was to come here.

"I’m over the moon. As I said in that interview (when I signed), I’m so happy to be here and I really want to kick on, to get this club where they deserve.

"With this team, anything is possible and we just need to fight together and keep going.

"I mean for me, I loved every minute of it; every second, every day. I wouldn’t change it to be honest, I learned so much from being there and experienced many things.

"But I think the most important thing for me when I was making the decision was to be playing first-team football.

"I need to be in a team where I’m getting regular minutes.

"Whether that’s starting or coming off the bench, just having that feeling of going into a matchday knowing you’re going to play, that’s the only way I can improve now.

"The love I have for Liverpool is still going to be there forever, that’s not going to change, I’m still going to be watching and looking out for them from afar. I’m wishing them all the very best.

"But sometimes in football you need to be selfish. I made the decision to leave because I wanted to do what’s best for me.

"I take all of my experiences and everything I learnt from Liverpool. Hopefully I can start to kick on now."

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