France forward Hugo Ekitike suffered a ruptured Achilles during Liverpool’s Champions League clash against Paris St Germain on Tuesday and will miss the World Cup, French newspapers Le Parisien and L’Équipe reported on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old pointed to his Achilles tendon as medical staff attended to him before he was carried off on a stretcher at Anfield, where Liverpool lost 2-0 in their quarter-final second leg, exiting the competition with a 4-0 aggregate defeat. L’Équipe reported he will have a nine-month spell on the sidelines.
“It looks really bad but we don’t know how bad yet,” said Slot last night. “We all see the video and the clips, it doesn’t look good. For only 88 minutes until tonight we have played with Florian [Wirtz], Alex [Alexander Isak] and Hugo, and we added about 27 to that tonight. I would be surprised if we add any more minutes to that this season. The good thing is, Alex is back.”
Ekitike has 17 goals in all competitions this season since Liverpool signed him from Eintracht Frankfurt for £69 million (€79 million) in July.
