Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 was stretchered off late in the first half of Liverpool\u2019s 2\u20130 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain after collapsing to the turf, leaving teammates and staff visibly concerned.<\/p>\n
\u201cHugo looks really bad but it is difficult to say how bad,\u201d Slot confessed. \u201cLet\u2019s see. It doesn\u2019t look good, that is clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 added: \u201cI think it is bad. I don\u2019t know, I have heard many things, I have no word to talk about that because with the World Cup coming it is very, very hard for him and I send him my prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
No formal diagnosis has been released. Fans were alarmed to see Ekitik\u00e9 leave the field on a stretcher after sitting on the ground and grabbing his ankle, a sign that pointed to a possible Achilles problem. The draft also notes that problems around that area can vary in severity and that the dreaded ACL injury is among the worst possible outcomes for the Frenchman.<\/p>\n
Scans have been ordered for Wednesday and the results are expected to clarify the extent of the damage. A definitive timeline for return will only follow once those scans are completed.<\/p>\n
If scans confirm an ACL injury, the usual recovery timeline sits at around nine months and it would take a superhuman effort for him to be back on the pitch before the end of 2026. Anything less severe would create the potential for an earlier comeback, but the timing is particularly cruel: with just six games and as many weeks left of the season, Ekitik\u00e9\u2019s 2025\u201326 campaign is almost certainly over.<\/p>\n
There will also be a nervous wait over his availability for this summer\u2019s World Cup, which gets underway in just under eight weeks. Didier Deschamps will not want to take the 23-year-old to North America if he is not 100% healthy, particularly given the vast number of options available to the France boss. An absence of 12 weeks would 100% end Ekitik\u00e9\u2019s hopes of playing at his first World Cup, while 16 weeks would affect the start of next season with Liverpool on Aug. 22. With an ACL injury, attention would be turned to 2027.<\/p>\n
Opponent<\/p>\n
Everton (A) \u2014 April 19<\/p>\n
Crystal Palace (H) \u2014 April 25<\/p>\n
Man Utd (A) \u2014 May 3<\/p>\n
Chelsea (H) \u2014 May 9<\/p>\n
Aston Villa (A) \u2014 May 17<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ekitik\u00e9 stretchered off v PSG; Wednesday scans will determine severity, World Cup chance and season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1084,1073,1047],"class_list":["post-11870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-achilles-injury","tag-acl-injury","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}