Harvey Elliott suffers serious ankle injury in Liverpool's win over Leeds

Liverpool midfielder Harvey Elliott has been stretchered off with a serious ankle injury sustained during the Reds' Premier League meeting with Leeds.

The 18-year-old overcame a pre-match niggle to take his place in the starting lineup, keeping more experienced midfielders Jordan Henderson and Naby Keita on the bench.

But after playing brightly for an hour at Elland Road - helping Liverpool take a 2-0 lead - Elliott appeared to get his foot awkwardly stuck in the turf after a challenge from Leeds defender Pascal Struijk.

It was soon apparent that the Englishman had suffered a serious injury, with Elliott quickly tended to by medical personnel from both teams. He appeared to be in significant pain, but was at least able to respond to the generous round of applause he received from both sets of supporters as he was taken from the field on a stretcher.

Struijk was then shown a red card by referee Craig Pawson, which was perhaps reflective of the serious nature of the injury rather than any malicious intent from the Leeds defender.

Manager Jurgen Klopp said in an update on his condition: "It is a bad injury. [The] ankle, I heard it was dislocated and they could put it back in. He's now in the hospital. We have to wait, obviously. He played again an incredible game, he's an incredible player, and now he's out.

"Do I want such a young boy having this experience that early in his career? No. But now it's the case and we have to be there, and we will be there. We will play football without him but obviously we will wait for him as well because he's a top, top, top player."

Reflecting on the incident after the match, Virgil van Dijk said on the incident: "All our thoughts and prayers are going to Harvey. Hopefully he recovers quickly and as well as possible from it. Obviously we don't know the diagnosis but it looked bad.

"From the moment it happened, I think you saw Mo shouting to the sides showing it was serious."

As for Elliott, he has already taken to social media to thank fans for the initial wave of get well messages that have been posted.

By the time Elliott had been taken off, Liverpool had assumed control of the match at Elland Road, pinning the hosts back in their own half for much of the first half.

Mohamed Salah, who was close to Elliott when he suffered his injury and first signalled for help, opened the scoring after a fine cross from Trent Alexander-Arnold, before the Reds' lead was doubled by Fabinho just four minutes after the interval.

The Brazilian, whose participation in the game was only confirmed late on Friday after FIFA opted against imposing a ban on clubs who prevented players from South America travelling to World Cup qualifiers, poked home at the second attempt, having taken control of Virgil van Dijk's headed knock down.