SPECIAL teenager to earn first-team promotion

Giovanni Leoni is expected to be sidelined for several months after picking up an ACL tear and this gives an exciting wonderkid a chance for promotion.

The Italian suffered the worst possible scenario on his debut against Southampton. Leoni had played a stupendous game but his performance was tainted by the terrible injury he picked-up towards the end of the game.

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It now means we are unlikely to see the 18-year-old in action this season. Leoni's goal will be to come back before the end of the campaign but Liverpool will not rush him back and will be careful in his rehabilitation.

There is no doubt that this is a blow to Liverpool as a whole. After missing out on Marc Guehi on the final day of the summer window, the Reds' centre-back options were already not as strong as they had hoped.

Now with Leoni sidelined, they have just Joe Gomez, Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk to select from.

Considering the former two are both injury prone this is not an ideal situation for Arne Slot.

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However, there is always a silver lining. Injuries are opportunities for talented young players. Trent Alexander-Arnold broke through because Nathaniel Clyne was ruled out for several months.

Similar breakthroughs happened to the likes of Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen, with more senior players picking-up injuries that facilitated their promotions.

In the aftermath of Leoni's setback, Carter Pinnington could now be set for a promotion.

Carter Pinnington set for Liverpool promotion to replace Leoni

The exciting wonderkid has been catching the eye this season. Despite only being 18-years-old, Pinnington has been playing at this level and higher for quite some time. He made his debut for the U18s at just 15-years-old, and already has 46 appearances for the club's U21 team.

A strong and no-nonsense defender, he's been earmarked as someone who could follow Jarell Quansah's path into the first team.

This season he has been working closely alongside U21 head-coach Rob Page, who has been brought in to help Liverpool's young stars make the next step into adult football.

In order to help Pinnington, Page even played him as a holding-midfielder in pre-season to get him to be more comfortable on the ball.

He's caught the eye in the Reds' most recent Premier League 2 fixture, winning seven defensive duels out of seven contests and seven aerial duels out of seven as well.

In that game Pinnington also made 16 recoveries and produced a similarly monstrous performance. Page praised his mentality after Pinnington's performance against Atletico as per the Daily Mail.

‘Some of the blocks at the end, another day we would have lost that game,’ said Page. ‘Everything we do in training is about winning, about results, that mentality, giving the players accountability and giving them the tools to be more rounded players.’

Capable of playing as a right-back and as a left-back, Pinnington feels like the next in line for a first-team promotion given Liverpool's lack of centre-back options.

Based on his recent performances he is definitely ready for the step-up and with Crystal Palace coming up in the League Cup next, that might be a game where he is given an opportunity.

Slot doesn't have a lot of other choices left. Given Pinnington is also eligible to be in the Liverpool B squad for the Champions League, we also expect him to be sitting on the bench for those games and training a lot more with the first team.

Leoni's injury means he's now going to be promoted and take his place. Until January at the very least.

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