Man City hit by injury blow as new Liverpool shirt sponsor options emerge

On the day that Liverpool face Villarreal in the Champions League semi-final first leg at Anfield, here are your Liverpool FC morning headlines for Wednesday 27, April.

Manchester City have been handed a fresh injury blow after John Stones was forced off through injury in their Champions League semi-final first leg against Real Madrid this evening.

The England international was a doubt heading into the match, though started the game against the Spanish giants at right-back. Stones' evening came to an end just 36 minutes into the match, however, as he made way for Fernandinho.

After being substituted, images emerged of the former Everton centre-back stood in the players' tunnel with a distraught look on his face.

Stones missed the Sky Blues' 5-1 hammering of Watford at the weekend having exited the field of play with muscle tightness in City's prior game against Brighton. This setback comes at a bad time for the Sky Blues, who are also without right-back Kyle Walker as they prepare to enter a crucial period in the season, going head-to-head with Liverpool for the Premier League title.

For any major football team the nearing of a major partnership brings about the need to see what comes next, and making sure that it is better than what went before.

There are few more valuable commercial deals for Liverpool than the one that sits on the front of their shirts. Since 2010 that partnership has been with financial services giant Standard Chartered, a deal that has risen in value from the £20m per year deal over four year that was inked under the ownership of George Gillett and Tom Hicks back in 2009. It is a deal that is now worth double that annually, having risen from £20m per year to £30m per year by 2015, and a further £10m