Rodgers Confirms Lucas Leiva Set For Early Injury Return

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has confirmed midfielder Lucas Leiva is set to make his long-awaited injury comeback during the clubs tour of North America.

Leiva sustained an anterior cruciate ligament injury to his knee back in November 2011 and was expected to be on the sidelines until September.

However, Rodgers has confirmed the Brazilian is back two months ahead of schedule and he plans to introduce the midfielder back into first team action over the next 10 days as the Reds continue their pre-season preparations with friendlies against Toronto, Roma and Tottenham.

The boss told lfctour.com:

“He’ll have some involvement. He’s still got some way to go to get back to where he was before the injury but he’s back two months early.

“This is normally a nine-month injury. He’s been back in seven, and that’s great credit to his work and the work of the medics here.

“He’s done very, very well and is working very hard. We can feed him into some of the games and increase his mental capacity to improve, because obviously it was a serious injury.

“He’s a great guy, he loves his football, loves this club, and he’s making great progress.”

Asked whether Leiva would feature against Toronto on Saturday, Rodgers said:

“We shall see. The maximum any player will play on Saturday is 45 minutes.”

So great news for Liverpool as one of their key midfielders looks set to be fit for the start of the 2012/13 season.