“I was one of the best technically, but…” – The reason €35m midfielder was let go by Chelsea | OneFootball

Harvey Elliott has emerged as one of Liverpool’s key players this season, his versatility allowing him to play a number of roles for Jurgen Klopp’s team as the 21 year old has finally established himself as a regular.

He’s valued at €35m by Transfermarkt, although that could easily double in the next year or so if he continues as a regular for the Reds.

Speaking on a panel discussion, the midfielder told us a little more about the story of how he came to be released by Chelsea as a kid:

“I was at a few clubs when I was younger. I was at Chelsea when I was a kid, and they released me because they said I was too small,” he said in quotes picked up by This Is Anfield.

“I remember them saying that technically I was one of the best in the group, but I was too small,” Elliott had commented in an earlier interview about his release.

You can’t win them all

You can’t spend all your time regretting the players who didn’t make it. The Chelsea academy does a better job than pretty much any other similar establishment in the world at developing players, and none of them are perfect.

For every Harvey Elliot who slipped through the net, there are quite literally thousands of others who were simply too small or too weak or too slow to not be able to cut it at the very top level.

The guys working at the top of the academy have to make these incredibly tough decisions every year as they cut down the numbers in each age group, and nobody can predict how well

Would it have been good to keep Harvey around? Of course. But Neil Bath and his team have an unimpeachable record, and their hit rate is incredible, even if it’s not perfect.