Liverpool's Champions League Hopes Diminish After Ekitike Injury
Daniel Sturridge could barely watch.
High in the gantry at Anfield, working the game for Amazon, the former Liverpool striker saw Hugo Ekitike hit the turf with no one near him, clutching at his right leg. Within seconds, the stretcher was on. Within minutes, the mood of the night had changed.
“I am honestly so devastated for him,” Sturridge said on air, his voice carrying the weight of a career scarred by similar moments. “I can't imagine what his emotions are like right now, but it looks to be a bad one. Praying for him, of course. Moments like this are moments, as football players, you never wanna feel. I feel so sorry for him right now; it's a big shame.”
On a night when Liverpool needed everything to go right, everything went wrong.
Slot’s gamble unravels
Arne Slot had rolled the dice before a ball was kicked. Trailing 2-0 from the first leg against Paris Saint-Germain, he named both Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak in an aggressive starting XI at Anfield, signalling that Liverpool would chase this tie from the first whistle.
Then came the reveal. Slot admitted pre-match that Isak would not play more than 45 minutes, effectively telegraphing his plan to anyone listening, including PSG. It was a bold call. It also left Liverpool walking a tightrope with an in-form Ekitike and a not-fully-fit Isak as the central pillars of the comeback.
The rope snapped in the 27th minute.
Ekitike slipped on the Anfield turf and immediately went down. At first glance it looked innocuous, the kind of moment players usually shake off. He didn’t. He stayed down, grimacing, clutching at his right ankle and at times his Achilles. Medical staff rushed on. The delay grew longer. The crowd grew quieter.
Eventually, the stretcher arrived. As he was carried off, the sense of jeopardy around Liverpool’s season deepened.
World Cup fears
For Liverpool, losing their sharpest striker on a night that demanded goals was a hammer blow. For Ekitike, it could be far worse.
The World Cup is only weeks away. The 22-year-old has forced his way into the France squad this season, his form at club level impossible to ignore. Sixteen goals in all competitions for Liverpool have underpinned his rise, and he underlined his international credentials with a goal in France’s 2-1 win over Brazil in Boston last month, at one of the venues that will host World Cup matches.
Now he faces an anxious wait. The early signs at Anfield were worrying: non-contact, ankle and Achilles area, stretchered off. The kind of combination that makes players, managers and national-team coaches wince.
Sturridge, who knows all about injuries derailing big moments, felt it deeply. The timing, the stage, the stakes. All of it.
Salah enters, Liverpool push, PSG punish
Ekitike’s departure forced Slot into an early change. Mohamed Salah, initially left on the bench on what could yet prove to be his final Champions League appearance for Liverpool, was thrown into the fray earlier than planned.
The crowd responded. Liverpool responded. They pressed, they probed, they chased the game without their most in-form forward. But the breakthrough refused to come.
Just when Liverpool needed a moment of clarity in front of goal, PSG found one of their own. Early in the second half, Ousmane Dembele cut through the tension with a ruthless finish into the bottom-left corner, silencing Anfield and stretching the tie further away from the hosts.
Liverpool kept coming, more out of pride than belief as the minutes drained away. But the clinical edge belonged to PSG. Deep into stoppage time, Dembele struck again, completing his brace and putting a harsh gloss on the scoreline.
On another night, the story might have been about Salah’s last stand in Europe in red, or a famous Anfield comeback. Instead, it became about a stretcher, a young striker’s anguish, and a French winger twisting the knife.
More injury worries on both sides
Ekitike was not the only World Cup hopeful to leave the pitch early. PSG defender Nuno Mendes was substituted before half-time with an unspecified issue, another key player now waiting on medical reports with a tournament looming.
For Portugal and PSG, Mendes is central. For France and Liverpool, Ekitike has rapidly become the same. Both clubs will now lean heavily on their medical departments, hoping the damage is not as severe as it first appeared.
Season narrows for Liverpool
With the Champions League run over after Dembele’s double sealed PSG’s progress, Liverpool’s season suddenly looks narrower. The European stage is gone. The margin for error at home is not.
Slot’s side sit in a battle for position in the Premier League, their immediate task clear: finish inside the top five. With six games remaining, they hold a four-point cushion over sixth place, a gap that feels both reassuring and fragile.
The noise around Salah’s future will grow. The scans on Ekitike’s ankle will come. The questions about Slot’s gamble with Isak and his exposed tactics will linger.
What remains to be seen is whether this night, defined by a slip, a stretcher, and a devastated former striker in the commentary box, becomes the moment Liverpool’s season merely wobbled — or the point at which it truly turned.
