Aston Villa have a player who will be as good as Martin Odegaard, says Owen Hargreaves
Owen Hargreaves has named a certain Aston Villa star who believes can reach the levels of Arsenal playmaker and captain Martin Odegaard.
Aston Villa‘s 2025-26 campaign has not gone to plan up to now, with no wins in six games ahead of their Thursday (25 September) night Europa League clash against Bologna.
Unai Emery’s side only notched their first league goal of the season in their fifth outing, as Matty Cash thundered a shot past Sunderland’s Robin Roefs on 21 September, so things clearly need to improve quickly.
They endured a quiet summer transfer window, with Evann Guessand the only player Villa signed for a transfer fee as he arrived from OGC Nice, while Jadon Sancho and Harvey Elliott provided more much-needed attacking impetus in late loan deals from Man United and Liverpool respectively.
Emery is yet to see much from any of his players this season, including his new signings, but Hargreaves thinks that a certain Villan has all the tools to be a top Premier League player in the near future.
Owen Hargreaves says Harvey Elliott can reach Martin Odegaard’s level
Liverpool officially confirmed Elliott’s exit to Aston Villa on deadline day, with a season-long loan move agreed between the two sides and a £35million obligation-to-buy clause inserted into the move.
He won two Premier League titles with the Anfield outfit during his six years at the club, and Elliott scored on his Villa debut last week for the club’s first strike of the campaign in the Carabao Cup away at Brentford.
He did not start against Bologna in the Europa League, but TNT Sports pundit Hargreaves reserved high praise for his talents and potential prior to the game and insisted that he can reach Odegaard’s levels at some point in his career.
He said (25 September, 7:48pm): “I think Harvey Elliott can eventually grow into a player who can be as good as Martin Odegaard. Technically, he’s fantastic, he hasn’t had the opportunities at Liverpool obviously because they had so many players, but I think centrally he is a fabulous player.”
Elliott will certainly feel like he can become as good as the Norwegian, if not better, especially considering he has already won more trophies than him at a younger age.
Elliott should succeed at Aston Villa if he is given game-time
Football Insider revealed in April that Elliott’s priority was to remain at Liverpool ahead of this season, but he had been frustrated with his lack of action at the club, so a move was sanctioned as he aims to further his own career while the Reds spent big in search of more success.
While his time at Liverpool was one of huge success in terms of trophies, he struggled to play a major role in many of their six triumphs after he joined the club in 2019 from Fulham, and so had to join a club that was set to give him a better guarantee of minutes in the years to come.
| Appearances | Goals | Assists |
| 149 | 15 | 20 |
Villa certainly seem destined to do just that, given their already thin squad and their desire to go deep into the Europa League, and the two parties seem like a match made in heaven as long as Unai Emery can find a place for the 22-year-old in his starting eleven in the long-term.
Elliott will want to prove his quality as a regular starter in the top-flight after spending so long on the bench at Anfield, and getting into the senior England squad will also almost certainly be in his sights after he shone at the Under-21 European Championships during the summer.