Ranocchia set to miss at least two weeks with knee injury

According to an official statement from Inter (as well as several news outlets like ESPN FC) Andrea Ranocchia's knee injury is not as serious as first thought.

The current Nerazzurri captain went down with what looked to be a pretty serious knock during this past Saturday's Serie A match against Empoli, and it was initially thought that the influential defender could be out for a month or more.

But on Sunday, Ranocchia underwent tests which confirmed there was no ligament damage, so the captain is expected to be sidelined for at least two weeks.

After the club made an official statement regarding his injury, Ranocchia tweeted this statement from his personal account, which, according to Google Translate, means: "Carried out the first investigations fortunately seems nothing serious."

Effettuati i primi accertamenti per fortuna sembra niente di grave.

— Andrea Ranocchia (@23_Frog) January 19, 2015

It is unclear at this time how Ranocchia's injury will affect Inter and Ranocchia's ongoing contract renewal negotiations, which, according to Il Corrierre dello Sport (via Sempre Inter), are nearing completion. The club and the player agreed back in July that the two parties would try again to reach an agreement this coming June.

Regarding the recent update in the status of these negotiations, the daily has also stated that:

"The agreement from the summer, which will be until 2019, has not yet been ratified because it did not include the transfer of image rights and Inter, which has taken them for all its players, want it, even more so, for the captain. The sides have remained in touch in recent weeks in search of a  'white smoke' because the club also wants to use the face of its defender for advertising campaigns to get revenue, but Ranocchia does not intend to give them away."

It seems likely that the two parties will eventually reach an agreement. This injury, however, may just put things on hold for awhile.