LFC Live - Arne Slot confirms devastating Giovanni Leoni injury news as Liverpool faces center-back shortage

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Arne Slot has confirmed Giovanni Leoni has suffered a serious knee injury and will not be back in the team for several months.

The Liverpool center-back was replaced in the latter stages of Tuesday's Carabao Cup victory over Southampton and reports in recent days claimed Leoni had been ruled out for the remainder of the season.

Slot confirmed on Tuesday that Leoni was set to undergo a scan the following day and, speaking on Friday ahead of the Premier League trip to Crystal Palace, Slot revealed the full extent of the issues.

"He is not in a good place because he tiore his ACL which means he will be out for around a year.

Coming to a new country, playing so well and the only positive is that he has so many years to come to recover from a terrible injury."

The injury to Leoni leaves Liverpool with just three senior center-backs: Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate and Joe Gomez.

Slot has repeatedly claimed Wataru Endo and Ryan Gravenberch are capable of filling int at the heart of defense.

Writing in an Instagram post earlier this week, Leoni said: ""I want to sincerely thank every single person who has shown me support in this difficult moment.

"It wasn’t the debut I had always dreamed of, but I will give everything to be back playing in this magical stadium as soon as possible.

Thank you so much!"

There will be more to follow on this breaking news story and Liverpool.com will bring you the very latest updates, pictures and video as soon as possible.

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