![\"Jeremy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0_imagemaker-2026-06-09T170025796.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGiovanni Leoni and Jeremy Jacquet will both be eyeing a first-team spot next season after the departure of Ibrahima Konate<\/p>\n
Jeremy Jacquet and Giovanni Leoni<\/p>\n
If Andoni Iraola has spent his first few days as Liverpool head coach by scouring his players’ social media accounts then he’ll have been pleased with what he saw from Giovanni Leoni.<\/p>\n
Because while the majority of the Reds’ players are jetting off on their summer holidays, with some others in action at the World Cup, the Italian uploaded a photo of himself entering the AXA Training Centre for what you’d presume was more work recovering from the cruciate knee ligament injury he sustained on his Reds debut back in September<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is fairly fanciful to claim that that blow sustained in the Carabao Cup third round clash against Southampton was where Liverpool’s season started to go wrong, but it was a cruel end to an excellent debut from the talented teenager.<\/p>\n Get the best Liverpool FC news and analysis straight to your Inbox courtesy of the Echo!<\/p>\n It’s as simple as 1-2-3.<\/p>\n Open the Echo’s newsletter preference centre RIGHT HERE.<\/a>Open up Sport.Choose Liverpool FC and hit Subscribe.<\/p>\n For the Reds to be robbed of him as an option for the entire season – especially in the wake of failing to sign Marc Guehi – was certainly unwelcome, and that’s before you even mention the personal blow to a young player so keen to impress after his summer transfer from Parma.<\/p>\n That is why the positive words from Arne Slot – rare ones in his final few weeks as Reds boss – on Leoni in April were welcome.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at Giovanni Leoni, I don\u2019t know if you once in a while see some Instagram posts from the club, this guy becomes a beast!\u201d said Slot, discussing the recovery of a 19-year-old he’ll now have only ever picked once for Liverpool.<\/p>\n That is still one more time than he’ll have picked Jeremy Jacquet though.<\/p>\n The young French defender will now forever be known as Slot’s final signing for Liverpool having joined the club in a \u00a355m deal from Rennes last winter, agreeing to complete his move in the summer.<\/p>\n Jacquet, who is 21 next month, now enters, and Leoni returns to, a Liverpool squad managed by Iraola and minus Ibrahima Konate, who has left a large hole in the middle of defence having departed the club following the expiration of his contract.<\/p>\n Both young defenders should see this as a huge opportunity, particularly as Iraola has previous when it comes to developing young centre-backs.<\/p>\n Dean Huijsen was 19 when Iraola’s Bournemouth picked him up from Roma in the summer of 2024, and all he needed was a season under the manager’s guidance before he became a \u00a350m Real Madrid centre-back, earning the Cherries a hefty profit on the near \u00a315m they paid for him.<\/p>\n Meanwhile Iliya Zabarnyi was 20 when a pre-Iraola Bournemouth signed him from Dynamo Kyiv in January 2023. He would play five times under Gary O’Neil before two seasons under Iraola during which he missed just three Premier League<\/a> games.<\/p>\n Last summer Zabarnyi joined Paris Saint-Germain for \u00a357m, and he’s now a European champion.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0_Screenshot-2026-06-03-at-133610.png\")
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