As one period ends at Anfield, a brand new one begins. Jürgen Klopp’s unbelievable nine-year run introduced each trophy potential (bar the Europa League) to the membership, and Arne Slot is the person tasked with ushering in new successes to the Reds.
The early indicators have been optimistic, bar a behind-closed-doors defeat to Preston, Slot’s aspect has beat Actual Betis, Arsenal, and Manchester United – scoring six objectives and conceding simply as soon as.
Whereas outcomes don’t matter in pre-season, getting your concepts throughout does. The previous Feyenoord boss’s concepts have been clear.
Whereas some themes have remained from the earlier regime, others have modified. One key distinction is that Liverpool now operates with an attacking midfielder (or quantity 10).
Harvey Elliott’s Liverpool profession
One participant this might profit massively is Harvey Elliott. Regardless of being simply 21 years previous, Elliott has racked up over 160 appearances for the membership he supported as a boy.
The vast majority of these, nevertheless, have come from the bench. Elliott has suffered from accidents, however he’s additionally suffered from not having a longtime place within the aspect. His greatest spell got here because the right-sided central midfielder in a 4-3-3, fluidly combining with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mo Salah.
He’s additionally been used as a back-up to the Egyptian, as a result of Liverpool’s lack of choices in that space. The reality is although, whereas he can do each – they don’t actually optimize his strengths.
His strengths are very a lot on present if you get the England under-21 within the last third of the pitch.
He’s placing up 0.22 anticipated assists per ninety, which ranks him within the sixty fourth percentile for attacking midfielders and wingers in Europe’s prime 5 leagues (keep in mind he’s performed lots of soccer in central midfield the place that might rank him within the 94th percentile).
Final season he had 6 assists, and through his time on mortgage at Blackburn – the place he was in a position to begin additional up the pitch – he had 11.
Harvey Elliott’s Position
Give Harvey Elliott the ball across the opposition’s D, and good issues will occur. On Arne Slot’s first pre-season tour, Elliott obtained the possibility to be Liverpool’s #10. He was extraordinarily efficient, significantly towards Arsenal.
His first help – a via ball from his personal half to launch Salah – was good. His second was even higher.
Elliott receives the ball from Dominik Szoboszlai and has little time to assume or area to function in. Fabio Carvalho makes his run into the field and his former Fulham youth teammate acts virtually on intuition, flicking the ball over the Arsenal protection. It wasn’t the primary time he’d damaged Arsenal’s defenses within the sport, slipping a ball via to Diogo Jota who hit the put up.
Elliott performed most minutes in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and South Carolina, and in addition to his spotlight reel of assists, he impressed. At occasions, he holds on to the ball too lengthy, however for essentially the most half, he provides power and creativity to the aspect.
Slot’s appointment offers Elliott an opportunity to cement himself as a starter for the membership, and he has lots of attributes that the Dutch supervisor appreciates.
With absences initially of the season because of worldwide commitments and prolonged holidays (in addition to the membership’s lack of motion within the switch market thus far) give Elliott to determine himself as a starter, from there he has the expertise to cement himself as a star.
Photograph credit score: IMAGO / Information Pictures
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