One trait that seperates Elliot from somebody like Minamino is his ability to keep the ball under pressure or in very difficult situations. Even when he finds himself being closed down on the wing with little support he still manages to come away with the ball.
Joelinton is one of the most physically imposing midfielders in the league and Elliot wrong footed him twice last night when Joelinton would have been favourite to win the ball.
The way he took the ball and got the pass off to Salah was brilliant play. He turned defence into attack in an instant and for once Newcastle couldnāt get 9 men behind the ball. With Nunez and Jota to come back heāll only get more opportunities to play passes like that.
The day he came on against Fulham I thought this is the lad that left us in Leeds a year or so before. He went into a 50/50 yesterday and I winced and yet he was up straight away. I suppose we will always feel like that but yeah to me he is already a player where potential is the sky.
They do an hour before and 2 hours after of punditry bollocks they think people want to hear it. I think the BBC are the only ones who trialled just crowd noise. Probably some public remit around it that forced them.
Unfortunately, he is rather slow for a RW. On top of that, he canāt score consistently like Salah to be a wide forward.
IMO, he can play as RW in a 4-2-3-1 formation. We can play Harvey as RW and Salah as CF, which should also place Salah closer to the goal than right now.
To be honest, Salah canāt score consistently like Salah anymore. Whole team lacks balance and, at least in my opinion, that balance mainly seems to hinge on Fabinho and Alcantara being fit and on form in every game.
Trent getting back to his best and Elliott continuing his improvement wouldnāt go amiss, though, but itās not unexpected to see Elliott drifting so wide in games because Henderson used to do it throughout last season. Salah did play much closer to goal then and Trent was able to pick up that inside central position on the right as if all three had some telepathic understanding. They still donāt have that with Elliott, who is also a left footer whose natural inclination is to cut inside, unlike Henderson.
I think a big difference is effect vs response. Hendo used to do it in response to the movement of others to keep balance. Elliottās position in these spaces appears to be a primary action, done to get him where he feels comfortable receiving the ball and that then has knock on effects. It creates a difference of the first pass having to find him in that position rather than the third pass.
