Elliott on the outside looking in again

It is not the start to the season Harvey Elliott would have envisaged. Left out of the squad for Liverpool's Premier League opener at Newcastle United last weekend, and expected to miss out again when Nottingham Forest visit on Saturday, the 23-year-old finds himself firmly on the fringes before August is out. That kind of message from a manager tends to carry only one logical conclusion, and increasingly that conclusion looks like another loan move away from Anfield.

Valencia have emerged as the frontrunners to land Elliott on a temporary basis for the remainder of the campaign. The Spanish club have expressed a concrete interest in taking him for the season, though they are not alone, Serie A pair Napoli and Lazio are also weighing up whether to make official approaches. Elliott, then, will not be short of options if Liverpool decide to let him go. The question is whether he ends up somewhere that actually gives him what last season so painfully denied him: regular football.

A Villa loan that left a bitter taste

Last season's loan at Aston Villa was, by any honest measure, a difficult chapter. Elliott moved to Villa Park under an arrangement that included a £35million obligation to buy should he reach a certain number of appearances, a clause that, in hindsight, may have shaped how Villa boss Unai Emery viewed the deal from the very start. It became apparent early on that Emery had little intention of integrating Elliott into his plans, and the young midfielder found himself sidelined for long stretches.

What made it especially frustrating was the structural trap Elliott fell into. Having featured for Liverpool in the opening weeks of last season before his move to Villa, he was ineligible to join another club mid-campaign when it became clear he was not in Emery's thinking. He was stuck, unable to play his way into form or confidence, watching the season drift by. That kind of experience leaves a mark, and arriving back at Anfield this summer only to find himself surplus to requirements once more will not have made the wounds any easier to bear.

What happens next for Elliott

Liverpool head coach Andoni Iraola was candid enough when asked about Elliott's omission from the Newcastle squad, saying he preferred other options on the bench. That is a straightforward signal, and it suggests the club are open to, if not actively encouraging, a departure before the window closes. For Elliott's sake, if a move does happen, the priority has to be finding an environment where he is wanted and where game time is genuinely on offer, not another situation where the numbers on paper tell one story and the reality tells another.

Valencia, Napoli, and Lazio represent three very different projects in two very different leagues, and the detail of which club Elliott ends up at, if any, will matter enormously for his development. He turned 23 this season and this is precisely the window in a young player's career where momentum either builds or stalls. The next few days could shape which direction his journey takes.