Niclas Füllkrug had to take a long break due to injury during the first half of the season, and now the next setback follows. The West Ham United striker will be out for several weeks with a thigh injury.
“Maximal crappy” was the start of Niclas Füllkrug at West Ham United. That was his own interim assessment in December, after the 31-year-old moved from BVB to England last summer and had to sit out for a long time after only three games due to an irritation of the Achilles tendon. Now the next unfortunate injury chapter for the national player follows.
As his club announced on Sunday, Füllkrug has sustained an injury to the back of his thigh muscle and will be out for “several weeks”. According to media reports, the downtime could possibly even be several months.
Füllkrug had only made his comeback in mid-December after suffering from Achilles tendon problems and had recently scored his second Premier League goal in his ninth game in the 4-1 defeat at Manchester City. However, on Friday in the third round of the FA Cup at Aston Villa (1-2), there was another setback: after a good quarter of an hour, the striker went down, touched his left back thigh and finally had to leave the pitch, supported by team staff.
Investigations in the following days now revealed the diagnosis and the associated long downtime – which the new West Ham coach Graham Potter had already feared. “I would guess that it is a nasty thigh injury,” speculated the successor to Julen Lopetegui, who was only installed shortly before the FA Cup game. “We’re worried, of course.”
The Hammers are back in Premier League action on Tuesday with a home game against Fulham, who are 11 points behind the European places and just seven points above the relegation places. Potter will also have to do without captain Jarrod Bowen (broken foot) and Michail Antonio (broken leg after a traffic accident). It is quite possible that West Ham will now be active on the transfer market again to cushion the Füllkrug loss.