Frustrated Liverpool star fires warning to Arne Slot over his future

Harvey Elliott has warned Arne Slot that he will need to leave Liverpool if he does not get more game time, fearing that he will be ‘wasting years’ of his career otherwise.

The 22-year-old has already made 147 appearances for the Reds since joining from Fulham in 2019.

However, the midfielder had played regularly in the last two season’s under Jurgen Klopp but has seen his role in the squad diminished somewhat under Slot.

In the 2022/23 season Elliott made 46 appearances in all competitions and then appeared 53 times the following campaign.

However, in Slot’s first season in charge of the team he has made just 28 appearances. In the Premier League he has turned out 18 times but just two of those appearances have come in the starting XI.

Frustrations are starting to mount for the England Under-21 international and he has made it clear to Slot that he will be looking to move on if he does not start playing more regularly.

‘It’s just a situation that me and the team have to have a conversation about because I’m coming into an age now where I’m 22, I’m going to be 23 next season,’ said Elliott.

‘I don’t really want to be wasting years on my career because it’s a short career. You don’t know what’s going to happen.

‘I need to reflect. I need to see if I’m content in doing what I’m doing and how can I improve as a player because that’s the most important thing.

‘I just want to improve and be the best possible version of myself. If that’s to go somewhere else, then it’s a decision that I’m going to have to make and I just need to see what happens.’

He added that it would be a sad decision if he did opt to leave, but has to think of what is best for himself.

‘Nothing makes me want to leave,’ he said. ‘I love the club, I love the fans, the team. I support them as well. But most importantly, it’s just about what’s best for my career.’

Elliott did miss over two months of the season due to a broken foot, which partly explains his reduced game time this campaign, but remains disappointed that he did not come back into the side on a more regular basis.

‘After my injury, I think it was always going to be hard, but I’d hoped I would have got some more opportunities – but football is football,’ he said.

Elliott can play centrally as an attacking midfielder and on the flanks of the front three, but there is plenty of competition for places at Anfield in all those positions.

Mohamed Salah has the right wing sewn up, while Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo have largely been competing for the slot on the left.

In the middle of midfield the likes of Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister and Curtis Jones have been ahead of Elliott in the pecking order playing in front of Ryan Gravenberch.

Florian Wirtz is also expected to join from Bayer Leverkusen this summer, making things all the more difficult for Elliott.

Last month Slot said he is a fan of Elliott and pointed out that he was playing more regularly than he had been earlier in the season.

‘Harvey is one of the players who hasn’t had as much playing time as he maybe deserves, but like some others he’s in competition with so many good players that mainly I’ve chosen,’ Slot said in May.

‘Also partly because he was injured for a long time and I’ve been honest with him, the first part after he came back from his injury he wasn’t the same as he was before his injury. But the last few months he’s back to his old level again.

‘There was no need for me to start with different players, but I think if you look at the amount of minutes that he had in the last one or two months and the time before, you can see it goes up already.

‘So that tells you that we like, I like, him more now than I did the first months when he came back from his injury.’