Liverpool told the first decision they must make in the January transfer window

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Liverpool should recall Harvey Elliott from his loan at Aston Villa in January in order to give Arne Slot more options, according to Don Hutchison. Elliott left Liverpool to join Villa on a season-long loan on transfer deadline day, but the move has turned into a disaster for the midfielder.

The 22-year-old has made just five appearances in all competitions for Villa and has been conspicuous by his absence in recent squads. The Liverpool loanee has not featured since making a brief substitute appearance against Feyenoord in the Europa League on October 2 and manager Unai Emery has made it clear he doesn’t want to keep Elliott.

Villa would have to stump up £35million to sign him if he reaches 10 Premier League appearances, but Emery opened the door for his exit last week. “He is on loan playing with us, but he is not definitely adding to us with a permanent contract,” the Villa manager said.

“Hopefully we can get the best for him and the best for us. I respect him as a player and as a person. He is training well, but we have one circumstance with him. Hopefully we can get a solution for him to try to play consistently and try to continue in his career with us or not.”

Former Liverpool player Hutchison believes Elliott should return to his parent club in January, with few options available for the England under-21 star. FIFA rules prohibit players from appearing for more than two sides in one season, meaning Liverpool and Villa are his only two options.

“If you're Liverpool, you're probably best off bringing him back and keeping him in the squad,” he told oddsboom . “They only had a short number on the bench at the weekend and, probably that's why Mo Salah was a little bit fortunate that he made the bench, because you know, [Cody] Gakpo was injured, [Wataru] Endo was injured, and [Conor] Bradley was suspended. So I think it'll be a good move from Liverpool to bring him back.

“But it's bizarre how he's not got any game time over at Villa. The only thing I can put it down to because he's got the ability and his attitude's good, but he was really close to Diogo Jota and he's just feeling it really deeply.

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Elliott left for Villa in search of more regular game time, having only made two starts for Slot as Liverpool won the Premier League title last season. He appears to have no future at Villa, who are in fantastic form without him, having climbed to third in the Premier League following a tremendous spell of results.

"Firstly, there are other players performing very well,” Emery said last month when asked why Elliott wasn’t even making his matchday squads. "This is the first argument of why he is not playing. He is training very well every day."

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