Arne Slot confirmed Liverpool\u2019s leading scorer Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 was absent from the squad for Sunday\u2019s visit to Fulham because of a muscle issue. The manager revealed the forward had suffered a \u201cslight hamstring injury,\u201d a problem that followed a heavy run of matches.<\/p>\n
Ekitik\u00e9, 23, had started Liverpool\u2019s previous six fixtures, all squeezed into a 26-day spell before the Craven Cottage game. He has accumulated 1,643 minutes across all competitions this season, more minutes than he logged during his entire career in France. Last season\u2019s breakthrough at Eintracht Frankfurt was his first full campaign as a regular starter, and the Premier League workload has begun to tell.<\/p>\n
Slot gave a clear explanation of the circumstances that led to the decision to rest Ekitik\u00e9: \u201cIsak has been out for a few weeks now and that\u2019s meant Ekitik\u00e9 had to play more minutes than the previous part of the season. That\u2019s led to him picking up a slight hamstring injury, and for a player of his age, not completely used to the Premier League, that\u2019s been a bit too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hamstring problem was the latest in a string of fitness concerns to unsettle Liverpool this season. Slot has frequently highlighted the number of injuries in his squad. Isak remains sidelined, and Florian Wirtz has also been unavailable with a minor muscle issue.<\/p>\n
Of the club\u2019s summer additions, Milos Kerkez is noted as the only first-team signing yet to require treatment, a situation attributed to his two years acclimatising to the Premier League with Bournemouth.<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s decision to omit Ekitik\u00e9 was taken with a busy schedule in mind. A challenging trip to Arsenal follows on Thursday, and the manager was \u201chopeful\u201d that his most prolific forward would be available for that fixture. Against Fulham, Liverpool named a starting XI without a recognised striker \u2014 only the second time this season Slot had done so, the previous instance coming in the Carabao Cup fourth round against Crystal Palace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot confirmed Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 missed Fulham with a slight hamstring injury after intense fixture load.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[713,175,172],"tags":[1081,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-5704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fulham","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5704","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=5704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}