Liverpool have confirmed Hugo Ekitike will be ruled out for the rest of the 2025/26 season. The Frenchman’s debut season is over after a devastating injury blow in the PSG defeat, leaving Arne Slot to navigate a growing Anfield injury nightmare without his most clinical summer signing.
Liverpool have now officially confirmed that Hugo Ekitike will miss the remainder of the season, alongside the upcoming World Cup for France, after going down with a serious injury against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night.
Heading into the second-leg affair at Anfield, Hugo Ekitike would have been raring to go in attempting to pull off a monumental comeback at the expense of his former employers.
With 17 goals already tucked away in a highly productive debut season on English soil, the Frenchman has arguably been the success story of a summer recruitment drive that has seen others falter.
While certain high-profile arrivals have struggled to find their feet in the relentless pace of the Premier League, Liverpool’s number 22 has looked right at home.
With three of those strikes already coming on the grandest stage of them all in the Champions League, he would have been champing at the bit to add to that tally and deliver another European night to remember against his compatriots.
In a season where consistency has occasionally been a rare commodity at Anfield, the former Ligue 1 star has provided a clinical edge that has often been the difference.
Facing off against a side from his homeland, the stage was perfectly set for another display of the predatory instincts that have quickly made him a focal point of this evolving Reds frontline.
Instead, he endured a nightmare night at Anfield after he looked to have innocuously slipped on the turf, midway through the first half.
Unfortunately, the eight-time France international had to be stretchered off, with confirmation then filtering through that Ekitike had suffered a serious Achilles injury.
The official Liverpool website have now released a statement on the 23-year-old’s devastating injury, too, with Slot having to reshuffle who he starts up top in the Merseyside Derby on Sunday consequently.
Liverpool’s statement on Ekitike’s injury
The injury curse that has relentlessly pursued Liverpool all season long has struck yet again, leaving the Anfield medical department working overtime.
While the club are keeping their cards close to their chest regarding Hugo Ekitike’s immediate future, the reality of the situation is starting to set in.
Official confirmation on whether the Frenchman will undergo surgery is still pending, but given the specific nature of the setback, it appears almost certain that a date with a specialist is now a formality.
It is another bitter pill for the Reds to swallow in a campaign where the treatment room has rarely been empty. For a player who had finally started to find his rhythm on Merseyside, the timing couldn’t be more cruel.
Alexander Isak was out of Slot’s starting XI for a considerable amount of time after he broke his leg away at Tottenham Hotspur in December. Thankfully, he is now back, and he actually started alongside Ekitike versus PSG on Tuesday evening but only played 45 minutes as he get’s back to match fitness after a lengthy lay off.
Ekitike will now have to become accustomed to the Anfield treatment room, himself, with Liverpool confirming that he will be out of the remainder of the season and the World Cup for Les Bleus, in a statement released on Thursday.
It reads: “The forward had to be substituted during the first half of Tuesday’s Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain at Anfield after a slip on the turf.
Scans on the issue have subsequently confirmed a rupture of the Achilles tendon.
The 23-year-old will therefore be sidelined for the remaining weeks of the club season and unable to participate at this summer’s World Cup with France.
Further updates will be provided at the appropriate time, with Hugo receiving the full support of everyone at LFC.”
With Giovanni Leoni, Conor Bradley, and Wataru Endo all currently out of action for Slot’s men, too, owing to a wide array of long-term injuries, Liverpool’s misery on the injury front just continues.
Didier Deschamps has, understandably, come out to offer his own condolences to the promising striker, with the France manager clearly a big fan of Ekitike, having started him in recent friendly matches for his nation.
He said: “He had perfectly integrated into the group, both on the pitch and off it. This injury is a huge blow for him, of course, but also for the France team.
His disappointment is immense. Hugo will regain his top form, I’m convinced of it. But I wanted to express all my support to him, as well as that of the entire staff. We know he’ll be fully behind the France team, and we’re all thinking of him very strongly.”
With his national team fully behind him in his recovery, Liverpool will also be there every step of the way to ensure he can come back, firing on all cylinders, down the line.
It will be a lengthy road to recovery for the ill-fated attacker, with the full route to recovery from such an agonising setback often taking a year.
But, he has suffered from injury problems in the past, having missed 18 games over the past four seasons due to recurring niggles, so he will just have to battle back to full fitness again, with 2027 the next likely time we will see Ekitike pull on Liverpool red.
