Erling Haaland could miss the rest of the Premier League season if the Manchester City star’s injury is as bad as initially feared.
After missing a first-half penalty, Haaland equalised for City in the FA Cup quarter-final clash against Bournemouth on Sunday afternoon.
Minutes after the goal, the striker was left needing treatment after hurting his ankle in a tangle with Lewis Cook before landing heavily next to the advertising boards around the pitch.
After being attended to by City’s medical staff, the Norway international tried to play on but was in too much discomfort to continue. He was replaced on the hour mark by Omar Marmoush who went onto score the winning goal to send his side through to the semi-finals.
Haaland was later seen leaving the Vitality Stadium on crutches, wearing a protective boot. City are back in action on Wednesday night against Leicester City before visiting Manchester United on Sunday.
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City released a statement on Monday night confirming their striker will now ‘seek specialist consultation’ to confirm the full extent of the injury.
The statement added: ‘Assessment remains ongoing to ascertain a full prognosis. The expectation is that Erling will be fit in time to play a further part in the remainder of this season, including this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup.’
Stephen Smith, CEO and founder of Kitman Labs which specialises in injury welfare and performance analytics working with the Premier League, believes there are three possible scenarios facing Haaland and City.
While Haaland on crutches wearing a protective boot was a precautionary measure any club would take regardless of the severity of the issue, a worst case scenario could see him ruled out for four to 12 weeks – potentially ending his season.
‘There are probably two or three different potential scenarios ranging from relatively innocuous to a little more serious,’ Smith told Metro.
‘It looks like his foot was planted and almost squashed together so you could have a little bit of capsular irritation or soft tissue irritation from bruising inside the joint from it being pushed and squeezed so tightly together.
‘Something like that is relatively small and maybe you can be back up and running in a couple of days. But it could also be a deltoid ligament sprain which is ligaments on the inside of your ankle rather than the outside of your ankle.
‘What you normally see is guys rolling their ankle. Deltoid ligaments are on the opposite side of your ankle. Something like that could be two to four weeks.
‘The most severe is something you don’t usually see in football but could be highly possible here is what is called syndesmosis sprain or what is sometimes called a high ankle sprain.
‘The syndesmosis ligament wraps around your ankle and sort of binds it all together and keeping the joint held together. It is a really difficult injury because every time you weight bear and your lower leg pushes into your ankle it squeezes apart. If you’ve damaged that ligament is starts to open that up and splay it.
‘It is a more traditional injury to get in rugby or American football and it comes from getting your foot squashed like that in a tackle and having your foot and ankle almost pushed back up into that joint and separates it.
‘It looked very similar to how something like that would happen and if that’s the case, depending on how bad the sprain is you could be looking at anything from four to almost 12 weeks.’
On concerns over Haaland needing crutches, Smith added: ‘Any of those scenarios, good or bad, that is the approach they will take to try and keep the swelling down and keep weight off it.
‘They might not even be able to diagnose it at this point, he may need to go off for a scan and have it looked at again because in any of those scenarios there is likely to be swelling and inflammation which makes it hard to diagnose it instantly.’
Haaland has scored 30 goals in 40 appearances this season, 21 of those coming in the league.
City are still scrapping for a top four finish and will meet Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-finals on the weekend of 26 and 27 April.
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