Jurgen Klopp has placed high importance on young players making their impact on the team and their progress this season.
Stefan Bajcetic has nailed himself as a regular in first team proceedings and Harvey Elliott has also played a significant role under Klopp.
Despite their underwhelming season so far, it has often been the young stars on Merseyside that have been a shining light for the German boss.
Liverpool would have been on cloud nine following their 7-0 thrashing over Manchester United, but they crashed back down to earth as Bournemouth came out 1-0 victors on Saturday.
Formerly of Liverpool, Stewart Downing has said that Harvey Elliott is always being deployed in a position that doesn’t suit him best.
Talking on the Football Daily podcast, Downing spoke about his time with Elliott at Blackburn and how Klopp is not utilising the teenager correctly.
“I played with Harvey Elliott at Blackburn, and he played more off the right but he’s obviously going to find that difficult with Mo Salah in the way.
“He’s sort of found that position in the middle, but is he as disciplined as [Jordan] Henderson and Fabinho? He’s probably not, and looking more to go forward and I reckon they’ll probably target that area and just play off the back of him.
“Elliott’s not defensively-minded and he picked up a lot of space. He’s not a natural midfield player, I think he plays off the right, but it’s going to take some job moving Salah out of the way.”
The teenage sensation has such a bright future ahead of him and could turn into an integral piece of Klopp’s puzzle.
Ex-Chelsea star Joe Cole has sung the praises of Elliott and suggested that the under-21 English international is already better than Spanish midfielder Thiago Alcantara.
If Elliott wishes to thrive at the club in the right-wing position, patience will have to be on his side as the indispensable Mohamed Salah will always be the first name of the Red’s team sheet.
