{"id":39,"date":"2026-04-16T21:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/?p=39"},"modified":"2026-04-16T21:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:09:19","slug":"hugo-ekitike-injury-liverpool-striker-suffers-serious-ruptured-achilles-and-will-miss-rest-of-season-and-world-cup-football-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"Hugo Ekitike injury: Liverpool striker suffers &#8216;serious&#8217; ruptured Achilles and will miss rest of season and World Cup | Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component-name=\"ui-article-body\" data-testid=\"article-body\" data-highlight-intro=\"true\">\n<p>Liverpool have confirmed that striker Hugo Ekitike has sustained a &#8220;serious&#8221; Achilles injury and will miss the rest of the season and the World Cup with France.<\/p>\n<p>The forward had to be substituted during the first half of Tuesday&#8217;s Champions League defeat to Paris Saint-Germain at Anfield after a slip on the turf and scans on the injury have confirmed a rupture of the Achilles tendon.<\/p>\n<p>There are fears the 23-year-old could be out for at least six months and the worst-case scenario is an absence as long as nine months, but it will take more analysis to determine a timeline for his recovery.<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool confirmed on Thursday: &#8220;Ekitike will therefore be sidelined for the remaining weeks of the club season and unable to participate at this summer&#8217;s World Cup with France.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Didier Deschamps, the France head coach, said: &#8220;Hugo is one of the dozen young players who have made their debuts with the national team in recent months.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He had perfectly integrated into the group, both on the pitch and off it. This injury is a huge blow for him, of course, but also for the France team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His disappointment is immense. Hugo will regain his top form, I&#8217;m convinced of it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I wanted to express all my support to him, as well as that of the entire staff. We know he&#8217;ll be fully behind the France team and we&#8217;re all thinking of him very strongly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-article-widget sdc-article-image\" data-testid=\"article-image\">\n<figure class=\"sdc-article-image__figure\">\n<div class=\"sdc-article-image__wrapper\" data-aspect-ratio=\"16\/9\">\n          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/e0.365dm.com\/26\/04\/768x432\/skysports-hugo-ekitike-liverpool_7214643.jpg?20260408220815\" srcset=\"https:\/\/e0.365dm.com\/26\/04\/384x216\/skysports-hugo-ekitike-liverpool_7214643.jpg?20260408220815 380w, https:\/\/e0.365dm.com\/26\/04\/768x432\/skysports-hugo-ekitike-liverpool_7214643.jpg?20260408220815 760w, https:\/\/e0.365dm.com\/26\/04\/1600x900\/skysports-hugo-ekitike-liverpool_7214643.jpg?20260408220815 1024w, https:\/\/e0.365dm.com\/26\/04\/2048x1152\/skysports-hugo-ekitike-liverpool_7214643.jpg?20260408220815 2048w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1024px) 1024px, 100vw\" alt=\"Hugo Ekitike reacts after Liverpool fall 2-0 down to PSG in the Champions League quarter-final first leg\" data-testid=\"article-image-image\"\/>\n    <\/div><figcaption class=\"ui-media-caption\" data-testid=\"article-image-caption\">\n        <span class=\"u-hide-visually\">Image:<\/span><br \/>\n        <span class=\"ui-media-caption__caption-text\" data-testid=\"article-image-caption-text\">Hugo Ekitike is out for the season with an Achilles injury<br \/>\n        <\/span><br \/>\n      <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Ekitike picked up the injury just as Alexander Isak returned from his serious leg injury, with the British record transfer making his first start since fracturing his ankle in December.<\/p>\n<p>Ekitike has scored 19 goals for Liverpool and France this season after signing from Eintracht Frankfurt for \u00a379m last summer.<\/p>\n<p>His injury comes at a crucial time as Liverpool aim to secure a place in next season&#8217;s Champions League. They sit fifth in the Premier League, three points behind fourth-placed Aston Villa and four points ahead of Chelsea.<\/p>\n<h3>Another injury for Liverpool&#8230;<\/h3>\n<p><em>Sky Sports&#8217; <\/em><strong>Peter Smith<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>Another injury for Liverpool compounds a common and unfortunate theme for their season. <\/p>\n<p>Of course, <strong>Alexander Isak <\/strong>was supposed to come in and post a big goals total for Liverpool this season after his \u00a3125m signing from Newcastle. But the Swede has struggled with injuries, including a broken leg which sidelined him in December and Tuesday was his first start back.<\/p>\n<p>The plan at the start of the season was for Isak and fellow summer signings <strong>Florian Wirtz <\/strong>and <strong>Hugo Ekitike <\/strong>to combine in a new-look \u00a3320m attack. But Ekitike&#8217;s injury against PSG added to Liverpool&#8217;s frustrating night, and Slot pointed out how he hasn&#8217;t had a chance to use those three big names together often enough.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For 88 minutes (before Tuesday) we have played with Florian (Wirtz), Alex and Hugo. We added about 27 to that (on Tuesday) and I would be surprised if we add more minutes to that this season,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>On Ekitike&#8217;s injury, he added: &#8220;Losing a game is hard but again losing a player is something we&#8217;ve had many times this season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>First-choice keeper <strong>Alisson <\/strong>has also missed game time with hamstring problems, <strong>Conor Bradley <\/strong>has had knee surgery, <strong>Giovanni Leoni&#8217;s <\/strong>ACL injury put a strain on centre-back depth, while <strong>Jeremie Frimpong, Wataru Endo <\/strong>and <strong>Joe Gomez <\/strong>have also been out for significant spells.<\/p>\n<p>After claiming the fitness of his squad was at its best for the campaign before facing PSG, to yet another setback. Liverpool have been hampered and hindered regularly.<\/p>\n<h3>Liverpool&#8217;s remaining matches<\/h3>\n<p><strong>April 19:<\/strong> Everton (A), live on <em>Sky Sports<\/em>kick-off 2pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>April 25:<\/strong> Crystal Palace (H), kick-off 3pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>May 3:<\/strong> Manchester United (A), live on<em> Sky Sports<\/em>kick-off 3.30pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>May 9:<\/strong> Chelsea (H), kick-off 12.30pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>May 17:<\/strong> Aston Villa (A), kick-off TBD<\/p>\n<p><strong>May 24:<\/strong> Brentford (H), kick-off 4pm<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liverpool have confirmed that striker Hugo Ekitike has sustained a &#8220;serious&#8221; Achilles injury and will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}