Jeremy Jacquet is set to miss the rest of the season(Image: Getty Images)
Liverpool-bound defender Jeremy Jacquet is set to undergo season-ending surgery on his shoulder.
Jacquet agreed to sign for the Reds in a pre-contract £55million plus £5m add-ons deal last month, with the 20-year-old heading to Anfield in the summer. It meant that the Frenchman would remain at Rennes for the rest of the campaign, as he looked to help Les Rennais return to European football.
But Jacquet is not expected to feature again for Rennes this season. Just five days after his move to Liverpool was confirmed, Jacquet suffered a serious injury to his left shoulder in a 3-1 defeat at Lens.
According to Ouest-France, Jacquet’s inconclusive pain tests has left surgery as the only option. It’s added that Liverpool were in contact with Rennes and Jacquet, but have played no part in the decision and left the final word down to the Ligue 1 side and the player.
With Jacquet set for weeks on the sidelines and Rennes’ season to end in mid-May, there is a high chance that his season is over and he won’t play for Franck Haise’s campaign again.
Jacquet will then join Liverpool on July 1 after the Reds completed a move for the talented centre-back, who had been linked with Chelsea and Bayern Munich before Arne Slot’s side swooped in.
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Speaking after Liverpool completing the signing of Jacquet, Slot said in a press conference: “Very pleasing, of course, because first of all he is a very big talent – and maybe even more than ‘only’ a talent, but we speak about talent because of his age, of course.
“Second of all because we weren’t the only one interested in him, so another big compliment for the people that are working every single day so hard to sign players, that we were able to sign such a big talent.
“And [it is] another example of the model we are using at this club: so, young, very talented players, sometimes in the start of their career, sometimes already a little bit a few years into their career, but always players that are young and can improve us and help us for the short, but definitely also for the long term.
“We have signed a lot of them recently and I’ve said many times that the mid- to long-term, but even the short-term, future of this club is in a very, very, very good place.”
Jacquet had made 33 senior appearances for Rennes – including 21 this season – before suffering the shoulder injury on February 7. In total, the 2005-born ace has clocked 88 senior appearances across his career, starting in Rennes’ B side and having two separate loan spells at Clermont Foot.
He is set to strengthen Liverpool’s defensive options and could partner Virgil van Dijk next season with Ibrahima Konate’s contract up in the summer and Giovanni Leoni set to be out until at least August.
