Liverpool could begin preseason with J\u00e9r\u00e9my Jacquet and Geovanni Leoni as the only senior centre backs available to Arne Slot. That is a positive in one sense: both players are in the final stages of recovery from long-term injury. It also underlines how thin the squad is at a pivotal position.<\/p>\n
Leoni should be ready for day one of preseason. The 19-year-old Italian, a surprise signing last summer as Liverpool spent over $600 million on new players, suffered an ACL injury on his debut last September. Early estimates of a year out have since shortened, offering a welcome boost.<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s preparations come against a compact preseason schedule. Liverpool will train at home before travelling for friendlies: Sunderland in Nashville on July 25, Wrexham in New York four days later, and Leeds United in Chicago on Aug. 2. The new Premier League season begins on Aug. 22.<\/p>\n
There are further complications. Virgil van Dijk will be at the World Cup with Netherlands into early July at least and is not expected to report back to Liverpool until the end of the month at the earliest. Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 will also be at the tournament and his return to Liverpool is uncertain after he finished the season with no new contract agreement and no sign of one on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Joe Gomez, Liverpool\u2019s longest serving player, is also a source of uncertainty. He could pursue a summer transfer to play more regularly as he approaches his 30th birthday next May. \u201cI don\u2019t know is the honest answer. I\u2019ve only got a year left, so I don\u2019t know,\u201d he said recently.<\/p>\n
Liverpool managed almost all of 2025\u201326 with Gomez as the only cover for Van Dijk and Konat\u00e9. If Gomez and Konat\u00e9 remain, the arrivals or recoveries of Jacquet and Leoni would give the club five centre-back options for 2026\u201327. Equally possible is a scenario in which Jacquet and Leoni are only joined by Van Dijk, which would make at least one, and perhaps two, summer signings essential.<\/p>\n
That the coming campaign will almost certainly be Van Dijk\u2019s last with the club increases the urgency. It feels too soon for Liverpool to place so much trust in a starting centre-back pairing with a combined age of 39 and only 54 career top flight league appearances between them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Injuries and contract uncertainty leave Liverpool thin at centre back ahead of 2026\u201327 season. Ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,969],"tags":[1073,983,299],"class_list":["post-14104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","tag-acl-injury","tag-agents","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}