Liverpool midfielder linked with shock January exit after lack of minutes

Clubs from the Premier League and Bundesliga are reportedly tracking Liverpool midfielder Harvey Elliott amid his struggle for minutes under Arne Slot.

The 21-year-old missed two months of the season with a broken foot but has failed to hold down a significant role upon his return. Across his seven Premier League appearances so far this year, Elliott has accumulated just 43 minutes.

Sky Sports News state Elliott’s fringe role has caught eyes across Europe. Brighton & Hove Albion and Borussia Dortmund are both named as suitors but there are thought to be a number of sides across the continent prepared to monitor developments in his future.

Quizzed on his feelings towards Elliott, Slot insisted he remains a big fan of the midfielder but has struggled to find minutes for him because of Liverpool‘s narrow margins of victory this season, which he claimed makes it harder to turn to players who are not at their sharpest.

“He’s a talented player,” Slot stressed. “He’s been this for us for so long. In recent weeks he comes in quite a lot and gets his minutes over there, but like it is for him, like it is for all the others, they are in competition with many other good players as well.

“He was very unlucky that after two games he got injured, was out for a long time. And from what I’ve seen until now, with almost all of our players that have been out for quite a while, in this league, in this tempo, in this intensity, and the quality we have, the other teams have as well, it is not so easy to come back and be at your best immediately.

“I see this not only with Harvey, I see this with almost all the other players that have been out for five, six, seven or eight weeks. That is the balance we have to find, by giving them playing time to get back to their best level but still be able to win every game.

“Our margins are constantly small. If you’re 5-0 up you can give players that have been out for quite a long time half an hour or a half or even longer. But that is not the way we win, or won, our games until now. That’s also the reason why, if one or two times we were a bit unlucky, that we can draw a game or lose a game.”

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