Harvey Elliott coping 'outstandingly' with long-term ankle injury

Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders says teenage midfielder Harvey Elliott has responded "outstandingly" to his recent ankle fracture/dislocation.

Elliott was stretchered off during Liverpool’s Premier League clash with Leeds earlier this month and has since undergone surgery. It comes as a huge setback for the 18-year-old, who had started his debut season as a permanent member of the first-team squad so brightly.

Elliott is unlikely to return to the pitch for several months, but Lijnders has spoken positively about how he has handled such a serious blow.

“Harvey is Harvey, a young boy and he deals with it outstandingly,” the coach said, via LiverpoolFC.com.

“He deals with it really well and we have a really strong structure in place with our medical department, with all the guys around, we try to support him as much as we can in these early stages.”

Lijnders explained that the ‘family’ atmosphere within the Liverpool squad has helped.

“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,” he added.

“You see that our group is a proper family, you see how they reacted when it happened - Naby was with tears in his eyes next to the pitch, Curtis 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.”

Lijnders was speaking ahead of Liverpool's trip to Norwich in the Carabao Cup, which comes less than six weeks after they beat the Canaries 3-0 on the opening day of the Premier League season.

For more from Jamie Spencer, follow him on Twitter and Facebook!