MN Elite talk ‘Ekitike’ with the chronicle

The Chronicle approached us to give our insight on Hugo Ekitike’s injury history. Coaches Joe and Jon, explained to Chronicle Live how Ekitike’s recent hamstring injury may continue to plague him throughout his career.

Hamstring injuries are the most common in football and also have the highest rate of reoccurrence too. Ekitike suffered quite a large grade two hamstring tear back in February and this alone takes usually a minimum of four to eight weeks to recover.

This is quite a short period of time to recover from such an injury, so you’d have to ask how strong his hamstring was when he returned to match play. Having worked with players from European teams before, they tend not to be that focussed on lifting weights. With this in mind it would be interesting to know how much gym work he completed within his rehab, and subsequently how much force his hamstrings are producing.

If he hasn’t completed a thorough rehab protocol, his hamstring may always be weaker and as a result be at an increased risk of injury throughout his career. If his body is struggling to cope with the training or match load now – in a league which is supposedly slower and less explosive than that of the Premier League, and at such a young age – it would be interesting to see how he would cope moving forward as he ages. The fact this is his first full season as a first team professional and he had had this many injuries is alarming.

Chronicle Article