Crystal Palace and Chelsea boost as Liverpool suffer injury to £26m star in key position

Crystal Palace and Chelsea face Liverpool over the next two weekends of Premier League action and the London outfits will take on a Reds team dealing with a fresh injury blow.

Liverpool picked up a 2-1 win over Southampton in midweek but that fixture came with a bountiful serving of drama for Arne Slot. Not only did a Hugo Ekitike celebration result in a red card and suspension but a £26 million summer signing has now been ruled out for the rest of the season.

Giovanni Leoni, who arrived on Merseyside from Parma this summer, made his debut for the club against the Saints. Liverpool were in the market for defensive reinforcements during the last window with Jarrel Quansah leaving for Bayer Leverkusen.

Liverpool suffer injury blow ahead of Crystal Palace and Chelsea

The Reds had been linked with interest in Eagles star Marc Guehi, right until Deadline Day, but that move did not happen. Liverpool did succeed in bringing the highly rated 18-year-old Leoni to Anfield.

The defender was stretchered off in the 78th minute with his knee strapped up against Southampton and had impressed until that point. Speaking on Friday, Slot confirmed the extent of the injury.

He said: "The first thing is he's 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's so hard to take the positive side - there's never a positive side - but a positive side is he's so young. He has so many years still to go after he recovers from a terrible injury like that.”

Arne Slot reflects on Marc Guehi transfer interest

It’s a blow for the Liverpool manager, who may have been thinking about giving Leoni his Premier League debut against Crystal Palace or Chelsea. Liverpool travel to Selhurst Park this weekend before making the trip to Stamford Bridge at the start of October.

Slot was also asked if he regretted not signing Crystal Palace man Marc Guehi with the latest injury. He said: "I don't think - one day before we play them - I want to talk about that again.

"He's a Crystal Palace player, he's been very important for them there. We have to prepare for Crystal Palace who's a very good team, they haven't lost for 17 games now and he's a big part of that team. We have Virgil [Van Dijk], Joe [Gomez] and Ibou [Konate] and other options."

Liverpool go into the clash against Crystal Palace with just Virgil van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate and Joe Gomez as Slot’s only recognised fit centre-backs. The Reds are also managing the load on players with an upcoming Champions league clash with Galatasaray.

In other news, Crystal Palace planning new contract for defender Oliver Glasner 'loves'.