Liverpool dealt huge injury blow as goalkeeper Alisson is ruled out until NOVEMBER

The 33-year-old suffered the injury early in the second half of Liverpool's Champions League defeat to Galatasaray on Tuesday night. After running back to save a Victor Osimhen effort, Alisson immediately signalled to the bench that he couldn't carry on.

Giorgi Mamardashvili came on to replace Alisson and is expected to keep his spot between the Reds sticks for the foreseeable future. The Georgian recently made his first appearance for Liverpool in last week's 2-1 EFL Cup win over Southampton.

While an official announcement is yet to be made by Liverpool boss Arne Slot on the severity of the hamstring injury, Alisson was sent for a scan on Thursday to determine the full prognosis of the problem. However, it's expected that Alisson will miss key meetings with Manchester United, Manchester City and Real Madrid.

Slot didn't give too much away in his post-match press conference on Tuesday, though he did confirm that Alisson would miss Saturday's game against Chelsea, saying: "If one of our players is on the floor nine times out of 10 I fear the worst and with the worst I mean he cannot continue and that is what happened with Alisson. He will not be able to play Saturday that is 99.9 per cent (certain), although I think it is 100 per cent."

Mamardashvili is now expected to make his Premier League debut at Chelsea on Saturday having made his first start of the season last week before he replaced Alisson in the 56th minute in Istanbul in the Champions League.

While he had little to do against Galatasaray, Mamardashvili has been key for the Georgia national team, keeping a clean sheet in their recent 3-0 win over Bulgaria to boost his nation's World Cup chances.

Alisson's hamstring injury isn't just a blow for his club, but country too. While Brazil have already secured their spot at the 2026 World Cup, albeit in disappointing fashion as they faltered in qualifying, they take on South Korea and Japan in the October international break.

As such, Alisson wasn't called up by head coach Carlo Ancelotti, with Ederson, Bento and Hugo Souza the Italian's goalkeeper options for the Selecao's looming international friendlies.

Liverpool are looking to get their season back on track having fallen to successive away defeats. The Reds came undone at Crystal Palace late on last weekend, while Osimhen's first half penalty was enough to separate the Premier League side and Galatasaray on Tuesday.

Slot was critical of the decision to award a penalty in the week, stating after full time: "I haven’t seen it back but there was no contact with the feet. The last few weeks I am talking quite a lot about how we are a very fair team and maybe their player was really smart, he felt something and made it feel as if it is an unbelievable hit.

"The referee thought he could not overturn it, though he did in the last minute when we got one."

Liverpool remain top of the Premier League table and, ahead of the international break, they face Chelsea. They then take on Manchester United once domestic duties resume, as the Reds face two tough tests of their title credentials. They will then play Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany as they get back to work in Europe; they need to find a way to turn their form around quickly if they are to continue to fight on multiple fronts.