Liverpool dealt devastating Giovanni Leoni injury update as defender ruled out ‘for a year’ | OneFootball

Giovanni Leoni will be out for about a year after Arne Slot confirmed the defender sustained a cruciate ligament injury on his Liverpool debut.

The 18-year-old Italian was stretchered off in Tuesday’s Carabao Cup win over Southampton and Liverpool immediately feared he had suffered a serious knee injury.

Scans confirmed that, in a blow to both Liverpool and the centre-back, who joined from Parma for £26m in the summer.

Slot said: “He is not in a good place of course because he tore his ACL so he will be out for around a year.

“Being so young, coming to a new country, playing so well in your first game, it is very hard to take a positive - there is no positive but he is still so young, has so many years to go after he recovers from a terrible injury like that.”

Leoni’s absence means Liverpool only have three specialist centre-backs available, in captain Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate and Joe Gomez, but Slot opted not to address the question of whether he will bid again for Marc Guehi.

A £35m move for the England centre-back broke down on deadline day when Crystal Palace refused to sell their captain and Liverpool go to Selhurst Park to face the FA Cup winners on Saturday.

And Slot added: “I don’t think one day before we play them to talk about that again. He is a Crystal Palace player and has been very important for them as long as he was there.”

Liverpool are trying to bring Federico Chiesa into their Champions League squad as a replacement for Leoni.

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The forward, who set up both goals against Southampton, had initially been omitted but there could be a spot free.

“We have looked into this,” Slot said. “I cannot tell you exactly where that process is at the moment. That is not something I do myself, there are other people doing this. If I am informed correctly, if a player has a longer than two-month injury you are allowed to replace him.”

Slot also said Hugo Ekitike, who is suspended for the trip to Palace, has not been fined for his red card against Southampton, when his second yellow card was for taking his shirt off as he celebrated his winner.

“If disciplined means I spoke to him [he was] and but if disciplined means a fine, he didn’t get [that],” said Slot. “It wasn’t smart what he did. He recognised that straight away and said sorry to his team-mates. He is young. Players of all ages do make mistakes and that is what he did in this situation. You are allowed at this club to make a mistake without immediately getting fined.”