{"id":585161,"date":"2026-04-15T06:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/585161\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T06:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:09:10","slug":"hugo-ekitike-injury-liverpool-boss-arne-slot-gives-worrying-update-after-france-international-stretchered-off-in-psg-defeat-football-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/585161\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo Ekitike injury: Liverpool boss Arne Slot gives worrying update after France international stretchered off in PSG defeat | Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Arne Slot described Hugo Ekitike&#8217;s injury as &#8220;really bad&#8221; after the France international was stretchered off during Liverpool&#8217;s Champions League defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.<\/p>\n<p>On the night Alexander Isak made a surprise start following a lengthy lay-off, Ekitike was hurt with what appeared to be a serious lower leg injury just before the half-hour mark at Anfield.<\/p>\n<p>The forward dropped to the turf with nobody near him and clutched his right ankle area, appearing in visible pain before receiving treatment surrounded by his team-mates.<\/p>\n<p>He then left the field on a stretcher, to be replaced by Mohamed Salah, with Slot suggesting the injury was &#8220;not good&#8221; amid fears he had suffered an Achilles injury.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Amazon Prime, Slot said: &#8220;He&#8217;s not good. We could all see that it didn&#8217;t look good. He went home in the second half so I haven&#8217;t seen him yet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Losing a game is hard but again losing a player is something we&#8217;ve had many times this season. It&#8217;s very hard for him at this time of the season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-quote__image-element\" alt=\"\" src=\"\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\n                This doesn&#8217;t look good. The kid is distraught.<\/p>\n<p>                    Tim Sherwood on Soccer Special<\/p>\n<p>In his post-match press conference, Slot added: &#8220;It looks really bad but it is difficult for me to say how bad. Tomorrow we will investigate this further, how bad this is for him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s see but that it doesn&#8217;t look good is clear.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ekitike has scored 19 goals for Liverpool and France this season and was likely to feature for his country at this summer&#8217;s World Cup if fit.<\/p>\n<p>Ibrahima Konate added: &#8220;I&#8217;m very sad for him. I think it is bad.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know. I heard many things, but I don&#8217;t want to talk about that because with the World Cup, all of the things coming this summer, it&#8217;s very hard for him at this moment. I send him my prayers and everything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Slot boosted by Liverpool display<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Slot took positives from Liverpool&#8217;s Champions League quarter-final exit.<\/p>\n<p>The Reds came into the second leg with a mountain to climb having been thoroughly outclassed in last Wednesday&#8217;s first leg at the Parc des Princes, where the holders&#8217; dominance was not reflected by the 2-0 scoreline.<\/p>\n<p>PSG&#8217;s missed opportunities allowed Anfield to dream of a famous comeback but it was not to be as key interventions and a controversially overturned penalty frustrated a vastly improved Liverpool.<\/p>\n<p>Ousmane Dembele&#8217;s second-half brace eventually sealed PSG&#8217;s 2-0 second-leg win and progress to the semi-finals with a 4-0 aggregate triumph, but Slot took hope from a night that saw Liverpool&#8217;s final route to silverware end.<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/skysports-football-ousmane-dembele_7220297.jpg\"   alt=\"Ousmane Dembele celebrates after scoring against Liverpool\" data-testid=\"article-image-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Ousmane Dembele celebrates after scoring against Liverpool<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We made a lot of progression compared to last week,&#8221; the Liverpool boss said. &#8220;I have to give a lot of credit to the players, how hard they worked.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have to give a lot of credit to our fans, how they helped us tonight to execute our gameplan. If we have a high press, it&#8217;s so helpful if there are fans behind you, to keep on pushing you.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unfortunately, it&#8217;s one of the many examples of this season where we weren&#8217;t able to score from the many chances we had.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Again, we were so far underperforming in terms of xG [expected goals] and that is just an ongoing thing with us throughout the whole season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Add to that, as it seems to be a bad injury [to Ekitike]. We don&#8217;t know for sure yet. Add to that another intervention of the VAR, which went not in our favour and that&#8217;s also not for the first time this season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course we are very disappointed because there were parts in the second half where you could just feel if we can score now this is going to become a special night. But the future looks very bright for this team, because we&#8217;ve shown that we can compete with the champions of Europe in our stadium, to be the dominant team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Not many teams can be dominant against Paris Saint-Germain and generate so many chances as we did. But, yeah, chances is one thing, scoring is a second.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool&#8217;s attention turns from pushing for Champions League glory to ensuring they qualify for next season&#8217;s competition as their Premier League campaign resumes with Sunday&#8217;s derby at Everton, live on Sky Sports.<\/p>\n<p>            Sunday 19th April 1:00pm<\/p>\n<p>                Kick off 2:00pm<\/p>\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"sdc-site-live-on-sky__logo sdc-site-live-on-sky__logo--colour\" src=\"https:\/\/e0.365dm.com\/tvlogos\/channels\/4002-Logo.svg?U2t5IFNwb3J0cyBNYWluIEV2ZW50IEhE\" alt=\"Sky Sports Main Event HD\"\/><br \/>\n            <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"sdc-site-live-on-sky__logo sdc-site-live-on-sky__logo--mono\" src=\"https:\/\/e0.365dm.com\/tvlogos\/channels\/4002-Logo-Mono.svg?U2t5IFNwb3J0cyBNYWluIEV2ZW50IEhE\" alt=\"Sky Sports Main Event HD\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Slot needs to qualify for CL to keep his job&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Tim Sherwood on Sky Sports:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Liverpool were the better team tonight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I still think it was a penalty [for Liverpool]. There was contact into the back of the leg. He is entitled to go down with that contact.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If they play like that, they will 100 per cent qualify for the Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This tie was lost in the first leg. Why didn&#8217;t they go over there and have a go?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Arne Slot needs to qualify for the Champions League to keep his job.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But he has to be encouraged by that second-half performance.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arne Slot described Hugo Ekitike&#8217;s injury as &#8220;really bad&#8221; after the France international was stretchered off during Liverpool&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-585161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}