Mohamed Salah injury: Egypt rule Liverpool winger out for two AFCON matches

Scans reveal extent of back injury suffered in draw with Ghana
Marc Mayo19 January 2024

Egypt have ruled Mohamed Salah out of their next two matches after he was hit by an injury at the Africa Cup of Nations.

A back injury suffered during the 2-2 draw with Ghana on Thursday night has left the 31-year-old's participation at AFCON hanging by a thread.

The Pharaohs face Cape Verde on Monday night before a potential last-16 tie next weekend, should they qualify. A pair of draws have left them requiring a result in Abidjan to at least secure a spot as a best third-placed team.

Should Egypt be knocked out at the end of the group stage, Salah will return to Liverpool while carrying the injury. The Reds face Norwich and Chelsea towards the end of the month, games which he appears set to miss even if his country departs AFCON early.

A statement from the Egypt FA on Friday night confirmed the result of scans on the winger's issue.

"Mohamed Salah has suffered a muscle strain in his back and will miss two matches," it read.

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp spoke with Salah following the Ghana draw and admitted it was a "shock" to see him go down.

He told reporters: "I spoke with him last night and how it was. They are doing further assessments now and then we will know more.

"In that moment it was a shock and couldn't see why he was hit by something so intense. You have these kind of hamstring injuries in a different way.

"He felt it and we know how rarely Mo goes off, or needs to go off, so it is definitely something but we will see. I don't have any more information right now."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in