ACL

Teenage striker Michelle Agyemang has been backed to to find the strength to reach her potential “without a doubt” despite rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

The 19-year-old will miss the rest of the season after suffering the injury as the Lionesses beat Australia 3-0 in Tuesday’s friendly.

Agyemang was as a surprise inclusion in Sarina Wiegman’s squad for Euro 2025 in the summer, but scored crucial goals in both the quarter-finals and semi-finals as they successfully defended their European title.

The Arsenal forward started this season well on loan at Brighton, whose manager Dario Vidosic said on Friday: “It’s not just us that are heartbroken but the whole nation, seeing her go down in that game, I think we all held our breath.

“There are no words, it’s a tough one. I spoke to her today and she said she is OK, she feels good.

“She is a very switched-on kid so her mind is already set on it (recovery), that’s the impressive thing about her that maybe not everyone gets to see.

“It’s a chance to improve. We’ll keep her engaged and learning, if not physically. We can still keep her mind growing and learning as a young player.

“She still has a lot of potential that we were seeing each week, she was growing through the experience of playing and coming up against tough opponents.

“Now we’ll find another means to do that off the pitch. We’ll help her mentally so that when she comes back it will be like she hasn’t missed a beat.”

Having suffered two ACL injuries herself during her playing career, Arsenal manager Renee Slegers knows what Agyemang is going through.

“It’s a very sad time,” she added. “When these moments happen it’s horrible because you know that it will keep them away from the game for a long time.

“Michelle has been doing so well, she was in a really good place. The timing of this isn’t great, although it’s never a good time.

“But Michelle is very strong, she’s young, she will have the strength to come back and we’ll do everything we can to support her.”

Liverpool defender Giovanni Leoni is out for “about a year” after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament, manager Arne Slot says.

The 18-year-old sustained the injury on his debut against Southampton in the Carabao Cup third round on Tuesday.

Leoni joined the Reds in August from Parma for a fee of £26m plus add-ons.

“He is not in a good place because he tore his ACL which means he will be out around a year,” said Slot.

“Being so young and coming to a new country and playing so well in your first game, it’s very hard to take the positives.

“There is never a positive side but you try to look at that, and that is he is still so young and he has so many years still go to after he recovers from a terrible injury.”

Thomas Frank has had time to brace himself for Son Heung-min’s departure – but the long-term unavailability of Maddison is extremely unwelcome, to say the least.

Son’s farewell match in South Korea earlier this week was marred by the latest knee injury suffered by Maddison.

The anguished expression on his face said it all, and the sympathy lies with him.

But spare a thought for Frank, who in his first season in charge, faces losing two key attacking players.

You’d imagine that Spurs will give big consideration to entering the market for a new attacking midfielder.

Had their move for Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White ended successfully then the requirement to enter the market for offensive reinforcements would be significantly less pressing.

Such attacking quality is hard to come by. Expensive, too.

Mohammed Kudus, signed from West Ham this summer, has played centrally before and could provide an option.

But Spurs will have to do something to replace Maddison’s contribution.