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“But Stephen hasn’t nailed down a first-team place at his club so we’ll see how the season starts. At Sunderland he was just off it a little bit in the last few weeks but he may have picked up now. But I know Stephen for six or seven years from the youth teams.”
“We worked with him closely and moved him through the ranks. When he was under-17, I played him in the 18’s, when he was 18, I played him in the 19’s and so on. We used him ahead of his age and then moved him on to the senior team.”
As Robbie Keane has been forced to withdraw from the squad for Wednesday’s friendly with Italy, Elliott could well have another opportunity to impress the boss.