Wolverhampton Wanderers defender Yerson Mosquera is set to miss the rest of the season with a knee injury suffered in Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Aston Villa.
The 23-year-old central defender was carried off with just eight minutes of the game remaining after twisting his knee and scans have confirmed damage to both his medial collateral ligament (MCL) and the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
Wolves’ head of high performance Phil Hayward said: “We will be visiting specialists in the coming days to finalise the plan for surgery; this will take place in the next two weeks.
“Clearly there is a long recovery period ahead for Yerson, and the club will be providing all the support he needs to ensure a successful rehabilitation and a return to competition in due course.
“Timescales are difficult to state prior to surgery but it is highly unlikely he will feature again this season.”
The Colombian international has started all five of Wolves’ Premier League games this season after spending last year on loan in La Liga at Villarreal.
His injury has been compounded by the club still to replace fellow defender and last season’s captain Max Killman, who joined West Ham for £40m in the summer.
Wolves currently sit bottom of the Premier League table with just one point from their opening five games and defeats to Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle, Brighton and Aston Villa. They are also out of the League Cup after losing 3-2 at Brighton last week.
Things don’t get any easier for them this weekend as they welcome second-placed Liverpool to Molineux looking for only their second league win in their last 16 games.
While Arne Slot’s side have only lost one of their last nine league games, that shock defeat coming at home to Nottingham Forest 10 days ago.
Just one win from their last 10 matches, at the end of last season, saw Gary O’Neil’s side finish 14th in the Premier League table but has added extra pressure to the poor start this time around.
