Fulham academy coach lauds mentality of Liverpool whizkid Elliot | OneFootball

A former academy coach of Liverpool star Harvey Elliot has spoken about the youngster's mentality.

Elliot is the youngster player to play in the Premier League at 16 years and 30 days.

He played for Fulham in a 1-0 loss to Wolves in May 2019 on that day. Now he is one who could make an impact in the first team with Liverpool, despite only being 17.

Fulham academy coach Jack Johnson spoke about Elliot on the Blood Red Podcast.

He said: "'I was first introduced to Harvey as an U12, when I was coaching the U12s at Fulham. He came in from QPR, so there was a little bit of talk about him, and I had him for the season.

"My first impressions? Good player! Good feet, skilful, knew the game, and like a lot of players who are highly thought of, would play up a year. He was a good character. He was quite a quiet lad – not in a shy way, in a real focused way.

"He knows what he's at the club for; he knows what he's come to training to do – and that's improve and be the best he can be, every single training session and every single game. So, quiet, but that was down to being really, really focused.

"At U12s, technically he was probably the best in the group, but I think the turning point was when he developed physically – and he took real ownership of that himself. He went away and worked really hard on his sprinting, and when I came back across him with the U15s, two or three years later, he was a different beast.

"At U12s I could see technically he was good. But as a 15-year-old he had become really, really effective. He could score goals and assist goals regularly, and that came from him going away and working hard on his sprinting and his strength, and that's when you thought, at 15, that this boy has really got something.

"Watching young players play, as a coach, on the sidelines, you are thinking, 'yes, he might pass inside or he may get that down the outside and cross', but with Harvey, he'd get the ball, and I'd maybe have those thoughts in the back of my mind, and then he'd do something totally out of the blue.

"You couldn't predict what he was going to do, so I feel so sorry for the defenders he was playing against because they must have had no idea about what he was going to do. Harvey 100% knew what he was going to do. There was so many moments with Harvey where you'd be going, 'wow, I've never seen that before'."