Liverpool defender Giovanni Leoni is facing several months on the sidelines after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee, Afrosport reports.
The 18-year-old centre-back sustained the injury during his debut for the club in Tuesday’s League Cup victory over Southampton. Leoni was stretchered off late in the second half after going down in clear discomfort, with his left knee heavily strapped.
The Italian, who joined Liverpool from Parma this summer in a £30 million deal, had impressed during his first appearance for the Reds before the unfortunate setback.
Speaking after the match, Liverpool head coach Arne Slot confirmed the seriousness of the situation: “He’s down, because for him it didn’t feel good immediately.
“This is something we have to assess properly. Normally, injuries like this aren’t diagnosed within five or ten minutes, you have to wait until the next day, then perhaps do an MRI scan to know more.”
Slot told reporters on Friday morning at the AXA Training Centre: “He is not in a good place, of course, because he tore his ACL and it means he will be out for a year.
“Being so young and coming to a new country and playing so well in your first game… it’s very hard to take the positive side.
“There’s never a positive side, but you always try to look at a positive side and that is that he is still so young, so he has so many years still to go after he recovers from a terrible injury like that.”
The injury leaves Slot with limited options at centre-back. With Leoni now unavailable, Liverpool’s recognised senior centre-halves are Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, and Joe Gomez.
Rhys Williams, a Liverpool academy graduate who spent last season on loan at League Two side Morecambe, was an unused substitute against Southampton and could now come into contention for more regular first-team involvement.
The Reds will now turn their attention to the Premier League, with a trip to Selhurst Park to face Crystal Palace next on Saturday.
