Harvey Elliott broke down in tears after dedicating his goal in Liverpool's thumping win over Bournemouth to his nan, who sadly passed away this week.
Elliott scored the second of Liverpool ’s nine goals as they thrashed the Cherries at Anfield on Saturday afternoon to record their first Premier League win of the season in style. The young midfielder curled in a wonderful strike from the edge of the area after just six minutes to make it 2-0 and was influential in helping the Reds rack up a record-equalling victory for the division.
After scoring, the 19-year-old reacted with joy, pumping the air with his fist before waving into the stands and dropping down to his knees, overcome with emotion as he looked to the sky. Elliott explained post-match that he was thinking about his grandmother.
“Yeah,” he told LFCTV when asked if it was a special goal. “My nan passed away a few days ago. It was just for her really – and more importantly the three points.” Elliott then began to cry and put his hand to his face as the interviewer moved on to discuss the performance of Roberto Firmino, who scored twice and bagged three assists.
“Bobby is a great player, as well as a great guy and it’s always a great thing to play with him,” Elliott said once he had composed himself. “He’s unselfish in many ways, and just for his confidence today, it was unbelievable.”
Elliott played in a midfield three alongside Jordan Henderson and Fabinho and put in a magnificent performance which showed why Jurgen Klopp has such faith in him. Liverpool are without Naby Keita, Thiago Alcantara, Curtis Jones and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain through injury, but it didn’t show thanks to Elliott’s display.
They went in at the break 5-0 up, but did not take their foot off the pedal, with Luis Diaz scoring twice, while Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Fabio Carvalho all got on the scoresheet alongside a Chris Mepham own goal.
“I don’t think we could settle for what happened in the first half,” Elliott added. “We needed to go out and go again. The boys showed that today – we scored so many good goals. It’s one of those for us, we can’t just sit on it and be happy about it at half-time. We have to go out and keep putting in a performance to show the world, as well as the fans, that we are Liverpool and today we put on a performance.
“It’s back to the busy stage now – I think it’s three games in a week now – so recoveries are important. We’ve got to keep on going and use today as motivation but not get too excited about it, because Newcastle is another hard game, then Everton as well. We’ve got hard games, everyone we play in the Premier League is hard, but it’s about how we come back. We need to make sure we put in another performance like we did today.”
