Harvey Elliott axed from Aston Villa squad vs Man City after worrying Unai Emery comments

Harvey Elliott was axed from the Aston Villa squad to face Manchester City on Sunday after Villans boss Unai Emery admitted the player's performances haven't been good enough to warrant a starting place. The 22-year-old joined Villa on a season-long loan from Liverpool in the summer but has featured just five times for the west Midlands giants.

Elliott, who starred as England won the European Under-21 Championship in the summer, made 149 appearances for Liverpool after joining the club from Fulham in 2019. But he struggled to nail down a regular starting place under Arne Slot and agreed to move to Villa Park in his quest to play more football.

Elliott made his Villa debut as a late substitute during the team's 0-0 Premier League draw with Everton last month.

After another cameo appearance against Sunderland, he was handed a starting place against Fulham at the end of September.

But he was hooked at half-time and was left on the bench during Villa's subsequent Premier League showdowns with Burnley and Tottenham.

He didn't make it off the bench against Go Ahead Eagles in the Europa League on Thursday evening and was a glaring absence when Emery announced his matchday squad for the visit of Manchester City.

According to talkSPORT, Elliott's move to the west Midlands was driven by Villa's former president of football operations Monchi, who left the club last month.

Villa will be obligated to make the attacker's move permanent for £35million should he play at least 10 matches this season. And it appears Emery is now reluctant to give Elliott the game time he craves.

"I am being very, very demanding myself to choose in each match the player to start and the players on the bench and the subs players, and firstly is always trying to get the best performance collectively, through individual players," Emery said ahead of the match against City.

"Harvey is a 10 number in our structure, in our shape, and he plays some matches and there is still adaptation to add himself individually in our structure, the task we have.

"Of course, he is training well, and his commitment is being very well as well, but his performance was not enough [up to this point].

"At the same time, we have other players who can play as a 10 and they are performing well, and I have different players.

"This is the main reason he is not playing the last matches minutes, but he has to continue working like he is doing in the training session and of course getting his confidence in the performance we need through him."