It took less than 30 minutes of Juventus’ first friendly of the summer for there to be injury worries about one of the players in the starting lineup against FC Basel. (On top of, you know, all the other injury worries we currently have about a couple of Juventus’ other players and their potentially troublesome knee issues.)
Two days later, Jeff Ekhator — the first singing of the Giovanni Carnevali era as CEO in Turin — walked through the doors at J Medical to see just what was up with what happened
in Saturday’s scoreless draw to kick off the summer’s busy schedule of friendlies.
A short time later, Juventus announced that the 19-year-old Ekhator had suffered “a low-grade strain” in his right thigh — which, considering how brutal the tackle in which he suffered the injury on, seems like a fairly acceptable outcome. While Juve didn’t announce an official timetable for Ekhator’s rehab and return, all reports out of the Italian media state that the summer signing from Genoa will miss three weeks or so.
Here is the full text when it came to Juventus’ announcement of Ekhator’s injury diagnosis:
Following the muscle injury sustained during the Men’s First Team’s friendly match against Basel, Jeff Ekhator underwent radiological examinations this Monday (20 July) morning at J|Medical.
The tests revealed a low-grade strain of the biceps femoris muscle in his right thigh. The player has begun the rehabilitation process aimed at returning to competitive action.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport floats a rumor that Ekhator could actually leave for a season-long loan spell to somewhere like Parma, Ekhator is now on the shelf for the next couple of weeks at minimum while he tries to make a good first impression on manager Luciano Spalletti and Carnevali works to sign another striker (or two) ahead of next month’s season opener.
Spalletti had this to say about Ekhator’s performance before he had to come off injured before the half-hour mark in Switzerland over the weekend:
“He wasn’t able to fit in well with the team, he got a bit nervous. Then he started to feel some pain behind him and stopped, so it’s a game that can’t be judged. We know the boy well, we’ve seen him in action, we’re calm and hope nothing serious has happened.”
(Source: TuttoJuve)
With Ekhator out injured, it means Loïs Openda and Arek Milik (!!) will be the only healthy senior strikers Spalletti will have available to him for the second friendly of the summer against Standard Liège on Saturday.
