Arne Slot has expressed doubts about Hugo Ekitike’s ability to return from injury in time to face Arsenal on Thursday, with the striker suffering a hamstring problem last week.
Hugo Ekitike missed Liverpool’s draw against Fulham at the weekend with a minor hamstring problem, and at the time Arne Slot appeared hopeful that the striker had a chance to return to action when his side travelled to London to face Arsenal on Thursday.
Yet Slot seemed a little more uncertain about those chances on Wednesday, speaking to the media in his pre-Arsenal press conference.
“He has not trained with us until now and let’s see if he can today,” Slot said of Ekitike. “I have said two-three days ago he won’t be out for long but the games come fast so he is in between with the team and it might take him one or two days extra.”
Liverpool are already without Alexander Isak due to injury, so they had to play Cody Gakpo at centre-forward against Fulham. Gakpo did make the most of the opportunity to score a late goal in that game though.
But Ekitike is clearly Liverpool’s star forward so far this season, with 11 goals and two assists in all competitions.
Slot blamed the recent injury to Isak for Ekitike’s setback, saying: “Isak has been out for a few weeks now. That has meant that Hugo had to play more minutes than he did throughout the whole season.
“That has led to the fact that he picked up a slight hamstring injury, because we had to play him more and more and more minutes.
“For a player that’s his age and is not used to the Premier League completely, that has been a bit too much.”
As mentioned, Isak will be out of the Arsenal match, as will Giovanni Leoni (ACL injury) and Wataru Endo (foot/ankle injury). Mohamed Salah will also miss out after Egypt made the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations.