Liverpool completed the signing of 16-year-old winger Harvey Elliott from Fulham and then Jürgen Klopp put him on with 15 minutes to go of their 3-0 friendly defeat against Napoli.
Lorenzo Insigne, Arkadiusz Milik and Amin Younes scored the goals for the Serie A side in front of a sell-out 65,442 crowd in Edinburgh to leave Jürgen Klopp in no doubt work needs to be done.
“The start and finish were good, but in between we conceded simple goals,” said Klopp. “We need to do better. I don’t want to look for an excuse – and Napoli started pre-season at the same time as us – but their season starts three weeks after us so they can train nice and smoothly, but we have to work hard in four weeks and sometimes you have heavy legs in games like this as a result.”
Elliott was linked with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Leipzig, but confirmed his move to Liverpool earlier on Sunday and impressed Klopp on his first appearance for his new side.
“That’s why he’s here,” said the Liverpool manager. “Look, I could say so many positive things about the boy because we signed him. He came here, he decided for us, he could have gone pretty much everywhere but he wanted to be part of Liverpool. He already has a few records because of his talent. Now he’s here, let’s work with him. He needs game time and we will see where he gets that, but he’s obviously a fine, fine footballer and that’s the reason why we were really interested.”
Elliott, who left Craven Cottage after his youth contract expired in June, became the youngest player to feature in the Premier League when he appeared for relegated Fulham against Wolves aged 16 years and 30 days in May. He had already made his Fulham debut in the 3-1 League Cup win over Millwall in September aged 15.
“To have joined the club that I supported as a boy is a dream come true for me and all of my family and it’s an incredible feeling to now officially be able to call myself a Red!” the 16-year-old wrote on Instagram.
“I can’t wait to get started and it will be a truly special feeling to pull the famous red jersey on. I’ll work as hard as I possibly can for the club and I feel Anfield is the perfect place for me to develop and progress as a player.”
Elliott will now be part of Klopp’s Liverpool squad for the training camp in Evian.
