Explained: Why Hugo Ekitike is missing for Liverpool vs Fulham as Reds remain without injured £125m striker Alexander Isak

Ekitike has been asked to lead the line for Liverpool, with the 23-year-old impressing many with his efforts across the 2025-26 campaign - his first in English football. He has registered eight league goals through 18 appearances.

An enforced absence will, however, be taken in when Arne Slot’s side head to west London. Liverpool have, when naming their starting XI for that fixture, revealed that Ekitike is carrying a “minor fitness issue”.

That would suggest that he will not be ruled out for long, with a busy January being taken in by the Reds. They opened the new year with a goalless draw against Leeds and have eight more games to come in the opening month of 2026 - with that run starting at Fulham. Slot has said: "Hugo picked up a slight hamstring injury because we had to play him more and more minutes. Hopefully he will be back for the Arsenal game."

Versatile Dutchman Cody Gakpo is likely to be moved into a more central berth against the Cottagers, with the Netherlands international having filled that role before. Milos Kerkez and Alexis Mac Allister have also been recalled against Fulham, as Jeremie Frimpong and Andrew Robertson drop to the bench.

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Ekitike will be a big miss, despite failing to find the target against Wolves and Leeds in Liverpool’s last two outings. He could have earned a penalty against the Whites, but opted against going to ground after tangling with Pascal Struijk.

Slot said afterwards of seeing the Frenchman potentially cost himself a spot-kick, with Liverpool priding themselves on being an honest outfit: “He stayed on his feet. If he had fallen down it would probably have been a penalty but this season so many times when we were fouled we did not get a penalty.

“This season we have conceded a few soft penalties, but Brentford away, with Cody Gakpo, the referee said 'play on’ so our players try to stay on our feet and then it is hard for the VAR to interfere.

“We keep doing the same things. I don’t believe in the fact that over a season you get what you deserve but in a long time, two, three, four seasons, then I believe in it. I think I am not wrong in that we only had one penalty this season, for the team with most ball possession it is surprising. But I would not tell you I am encouraging them to do that. We are just who we are. We stay on our feet.”

Liverpool are hopeful that Isak, the most expensive player in British football, will figure for them again this season. Slot has said when asked if he is “confident” that will happen: “Yeah, the last thing I am. And the first thing, it’s been a really challenging and difficult period for him, I think.

“You join a new club and usually when you join a new club you are, and he was of course, very excited and you want to show immediately all the qualities you have but that was simply impossible.

“Maybe no-one understands but if you haven’t trained for three or four months on a serious level with the team and you’re playing in this league… in this league you need to be on the top of your game to impact a game of football.

“That took, which we all knew, months before we could bring him there because there was no pre-season, there were games, games, games. We had hardly any time to train, so we always knew that it would take him time and that’s why he is so unlucky that he is now injured because I think we all saw with his goal against West Ham, with this goal [against Tottenham], that he got closer and closer to the player he was at Newcastle.”

Isak suffered a broken leg when finding the target against Tottenham. That effort was just his third of the season. Ekitike has been helping to carry the attacking loan, with Liverpool hoping to have him back for a testing trip to Premier League leaders Arsenal on January 8.