Liverpool-bound defender Jeremy Jacquet is poised to undergo season-ending surgery on his shoulder.

Jacquet agreed to join the Reds on a pre-contract arrangement worth £55million plus £5m in add-ons last month, with the 20-year-old due at Anfield this summer. The agreement meant the Frenchman would stay at Rennes for the remainder of the campaign, as he aimed to help Les Rennais’ bid to secure European football.

However, Jacquet is unlikely to appear again for Rennes this season. Merely five days following confirmation of his Liverpool switch, Jacquet sustained a significant injury to his left shoulder during a 3-1 loss at Lens.

According to Ouest-France, inconclusive pain assessments have left surgery as the sole option for Jacquet. It’s reported that Liverpool maintained contact with Rennes and Jacquet, though have not influenced the decision and deferred the final judgement to the Ligue 1 club and the player.

With Jacquet facing weeks out and Rennes’ campaign concluding in mid-May, there’s a strong possibility his season has ended and he won’t feature again for Franck Haise’s side.

Jacquet will subsequently arrive at Liverpool on July 1 after the Reds secured the signature of the promising centre-back, who had attracted interest from Chelsea and Bayern Munich before Arne Slot’s team made their move.

Speaking following Liverpool’s completion of Jacquet’s signing, Slot remarked in a press conference: “Very pleasing, of course, because first of all he is a very big talent – and maybe even more than ‘only’ a talent, but we speak about talent because of his age, of course.

“Second of all because we weren’t the only one interested in him, so another big compliment for the people that are working every single day so hard to sign players, that we were able to sign such a big talent.

“And [it is] another example of the model we are using at this club: so, young, very talented players, sometimes in the start of their career, sometimes already a little bit a few years into their career, but always players that are young and can improve us and help us for the short, but definitely also for the long term.

“We have signed a lot of them recently and I’ve said many times that the mid- to long-term, but even the short-term, future of this club is in a very, very, very good place.”

Jacquet had featured in 33 senior matches for Rennes – including 21 this campaign – prior to sustaining the shoulder problem on February 7. In total, the 2005-born defender has accumulated 88 senior outings throughout his career, beginning in Rennes’ B team and undertaking two separate loan periods at Clermont Foot.

He is expected to bolster Liverpool’s defensive ranks and could form a partnership with Virgil van Dijk next season, with Ibrahima Konate’s contract expiring in the summer and Giovanni Leoni anticipated to be sidelined until at least August.