Liverpool take advantage of UEFA rule change as Arne Slot confirms U-turn on star

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The young defender suffered a knee ligament injury against Southampton in the Carabao Cup, ruling him out for an extended period of time.

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Slot confirmed the change on Friday, saying: "[It is] true.



So we're looking into it."

Slot also revealed that his Liverpool players have rallied around Leoni since his devastating injury was confirmed after the Southampton game.

"We have some examples with Virgil [van Dijk] and Joe [Gomez] and a lot of examples all over the world [of players coming back better]," said the Reds manager.

"It hurts more if you are closer to retirement but it's far from ideal.

The surgeons and the rehab people are important but it's nice if you can do this with players around who have lived through this.

"They can give the right energy in the right moments.

Our players have shown plenty of compassion for him and they will not stop."

Liverpool have won every game in all competitions since their Community Shield defeat to Crystal Palace, which they will be hoping to avenge at Selhurst Park this weekend.

Looking ahead to the fixture, Slot said: "Even we find it hard to score against Palace, in three games we only scored one goal, one we scored twice which they did as well, so it's difficult to score again.

"You tell me now they keep clean sheets then we, until now, were able to score.

We have players who can score goals and the quality as a team to create chances for the front four players.

"It's because of how they play and line up with a 5-4-1, it's not easy to create, so when we do, it would be smart to score as soon as we can.

You can only score a winner if you work as hard as we do to stop them scoring too.

"You do see teams who get frustrated in transition but we keep working and understand we can win it late as long as it is level.