Jeff Stelling suggests ‘devastated’ Liverpool player could be offloaded for as little as £15m

Jeff Stelling has suggested that Liverpool could potentially offload one first-team player for as little as £15m in the coming days and named one Premier League club which could be an ideal destination for him.

Harvey Elliott featured in five of the Reds’ pre-season games but didn’t even make the matchday squad for the 2-2 draw at Newcastle on Sunday, with younger talents such as Lewis Koumas and James McConnell included instead.

The Athletic’s James Pearce has claimed that it’d be ‘no surprise’ if the 23-year-old were to leave Anfield in the final week of the transfer window, adding that the attacking midfielder has an ‘uncertain’ future on Merseyside.

Stelling and Ally McCoist were discussing Elliott’s situation on talkSPORT when the former Gillette Soccer Saturday host offered a suggestion as to where Liverpool’s number 19 could go next.

The presenter said: “He must have been devastated at the weekend. His contract is up next summer, so this is not going to cost a king’s ransom. What are we talking, £15m, £20m, something like that?

“I was going to look at the newly-promoted sides like Coventry, but would he be out of place at Newcastle, somewhere like that?”

(Photo by Naomi Baker/Getty Images)

McCoist said in agreement: “No, I don’t think he would… He wouldn’t look out of place in that Newcastle side, and Newcastle are looking for players [to replace] the players they’ve lost. Obviously, Anthony Gordon is one who would spring to mind.

“The most important thing, and it’s massively important for Harvey Elliott this season, last season was a write-off. He can’t afford another one like that.”

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On the one hand, a fee of £15m-£20m for an English, 23-year-old Premier League winner would seem to massively undervalue Elliott in today’s market.

On the other, Curtis Jones – who’d also entered the final year of his Liverpool contract – recently joined Inter Milan for £30m (Sky Sports) and has played a lot more football than his former Reds teammate over the past year, with the latter’s career not helped by an abortive loan move to Aston Villa last term.

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

That Elliott didn’t even make the matchday squad on Sunday is a damning indictment of where he sits in the pecking order under Andoni Iraola, and as McCoist said, he absolutely won’t be content to waste another season being consigned to the periphery.

Liverpool’s number 19 is more than good enough to be playing in the Premier League every week, but unfortunately it looks increasingly unlikely that he’ll get that chance at Anfield going forward.

Given his contract situation and the £30m sale of Jones, FSG might ultimately be prepared to accept roughly £20m for Elliott if a prospective suitor were to satisfy his undoubted craving for regular first-team minutes.

That in itself highlights how badly he’s been messed around by negligent decision-making from the Reds’ hierarchy, and that of Aston Villa.