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Liverpool assistant boss has revealed that Harvey Elliott is making good strides towards his return from injury, helped by the club’s medical department.

The 18-year-old will not feature for the Reds for the foreseeable future following an ankle injury. He suffered a dislocation in a challenge with Pascal Struijk during his side’s 3-0 win over Leeds.

The injury proved a serious one and, as such, Liverpool did not put a timescale on his recovery.

However, he had surgery in London last week and is now moving towards a return to action. Indeed, Lijnders insisted that the England Under-21 international is doing well.

Lijnders also admitted that Elliott is one of the “better midfielders” at Liverpool.

“Harvey is Harvey, a young boy and he deals with it outstandingly, I have to say,” the coach said (via Liverpoolfc.com)

“If you see our squad of players, we have so many players who had not similar injuries, but similar situations where they had a long-term injury.

“You see that our group is a proper family, you see how they reacted when it happened – Naby [Keita] was with tears in his eyes next to the pitch, Curtis [Jones] was emotional.

“You see how much it means to all of us, not just from a football point of view, but from a young player point of view [who was] in such a good moment and we lost one of our better midfielders.”

Liverpool know all about long-term injuries following last season’s defensive injury crisis.

Virgil van Dijk, for one, insisted that he will help Elliott along the way. The Dutchman has come through a serious knee injury to impress again this season.

Elliott has Liverpool injury support

“He [Elliott] deals with it really well and we have a really strong structure in place with our medical department,” Lijnders said.

“With all the guys around, we try to support him as much as we can in these early stages.

“With a long-term injury, each day is a victory – the small things, step by step, and he’s focusing on this.”

Lijnders was speaking ahead of Tuesday’s Carabao Cup clash with Norwich. He also revealed that Thiago Alcantara will not feature at Carrow Road, or at Brentford on Saturday.

The Spain international came off during last weekend’s win over Crystal Palace with a calf injury.

Roberto Firmino will resume first-team training this week after his hamstring problem. Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was ill for the Palace match, could also return against Brentford.

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