Hwang Hee-chan out for at least a month with hamstring injury

Home > Sports > Football

print dictionary print

Hwang Hee-chan out for at least a month with hamstring injury

Wolverhampton Wanderers' midfielder Hwang Hee-chan receives medical attention during a Premier League match against Liverpool at the Molineux in Wolverhampton, England on Feb. 4. [AFP/YONHAP]

Wolverhampton Wanderers' midfielder Hwang Hee-chan receives medical attention during a Premier League match against Liverpool at the Molineux in Wolverhampton, England on Feb. 4. [AFP/YONHAP]

 
Hwang Hee-chan will be out for at least a month after sustaining a hamstring injury during a game against Liverpool last week, Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Julen Lopetegui said Friday.
 
"These kinds of injuries depend on each player as they are all different in their recovery, but more or less I think [Hwang] will be four or five weeks," Lopetegui said in a press conference on Friday ahead of Wolves game against Southampton on Saturday.
 
Hwang was taken out of a Premier League game against Liverpool last week when he pulled up in the middle of a run down the win clutching his thigh. Wolves won the game 3-0, with Hwang having forced the early own goal that opened the scoring.
 
Lopetegui predicted at the time that Hwang was likely to be out of commission for “a lot of weeks.”
 
Hwang reportedly flew back to Korea on Tuesday to seek more medical attention and is expected to return to Britain later this week.
 
 
A recurring issue for Hwang, the hamstring injury is likely to see him sidelined for a while, a devastatingly-timed injury for the Korean international who is just starting to see things turn around after a difficult year in the Premier League.
 
 
Like the rest of the Wolves squad, Hwang has gone through a remarkable turnaround since the Spanish manager took the helm. He immediately returned to a starting spot in the squad and scored his first goal in nearly a year in an FA Cup game — also against Liverpool.
 
 
Wolves have won three of their six Premier League games since Lopetegui took charge, more than they did in the previous 15 games of the season under Bruno Lage, who rarely played Hwang during his final months in charge.
 
 
Beating Liverpool by such a large margin and so quickly was also remarkable — it was the first time Wolves have one by more than one goal this season, the second time ever the club has gone up by two in less than 12 minutes and the earliest Liverpool have fallen 2-0 down since 2014.
 
 
More concerning is the return of hamstring problems for Hwang, who was sidelined with a similar injury just a couple of months ago. Hwang was officially out of commission for a week in November with a hamstring injury, although the far less specific “hamstring discomfort” was used to explain his absence throughout the final stretch leading up to the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)