Injuries are very much to talk of the town at Liverpool right now. The Reds have now been beaten by Manchester City and then demolished LASK 6-3 in the Champions League without three of their key attackers. Dominik Szoboszlai, Cody Gakpo and Alexander Isak all returned from international duty with injuries, which is far from ideal to say the least, and each of their return dates are not yet known.
Meantime, Liverpool of course have three key players who can now call the treatment room their permanent residence, namely Conor Bradley, Hugo Ekitiké and forgotten man Giovanni Leoni. The Italian defender ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament on debut against Southampton in the EFL Cup in September 2025, not seen since.
It had previously been reported that Leoni would return to full training during the elongated international break that has just concluded, but that did not turn out to be the case. Thus, speaking during a media conference at AXA Training Centre on Thursday lunchtime, Andoni Iraola was asked to provide an injury update, and had this to say:
"It's taking more time than we wanted. With Leo, the plan was to train in the international break, but it will be the next one, so we have lost one month of progress. It was not just an ACL, it was a bad injury, a lot of areas around the knee. That process has to be very careful and we want to be careful when he returns to the team he stays in a good place. So the plan now is he starts in the next break. Later than we expected."Andoni Iraola on Giovanni Leoni
Iraola, pretty honestly, confirmed that the initial plans was indeed for Leoni to ramp up training while the majority of the squad were away on international duty. However, he conceded that the Italian will not do so until the November window, which falls between Liverpool's games against Crystal Palace and Manchester United on 8 and 22 November respectively.
The Basque head coach, and his medical department, are right to be, to use his word, "careful" with Leoni's recovery. He disclosed that it was not just an ACL rupture, which is gruesome enough in itself, with Iraola describing it as a "bad injury [in] a lot of areas around the knee".
Considering he is still 19 years old, were Leoni to be rushed back and exacerbate the issue further, this could derail the remainder of his career. There was speculation that the Reds were targeting the EFL Trophy game against Huddersfield Town at Kirklees Stadium on 10 November as the night Leoni could return to action.
However, Iraola's latest idea very much kiboshed those plans, hence why fans will have to remain patient. Whenever Leoni next takes to the pitch at Anfield, expect him to receive a hero's welcome back, given all the Italian youngster has been through since first landing on Merseyside.
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