WILLIAM Troost-Ekong will miss Sunday’s Premier League clash between Watford and Arsenal with a muscle strain, Hornets manager Roy Hodgson has revealed.
The Super Eagles vice-captain is also in danger of not being available for the Qatar 2022 World Cup playoffs against Ghana as he could be out until the end of March.
The playoffs are scheduled for 25 March in Cape Coast and four days later in Abuja, with the winners on aggregate proceeding to the World Cup in November.
Hodgson confirmed in his pre-match press conference on Friday that Troost-Ekong and Senegal forward Ismaila Sarr had suffered muscle strains and are definitely out of contention for the Arsenal fixture.
Sarr picked up a hamstring problem during the 0-0 draw Manchester United last weekend, and has been rehabilitating this week. Troost-Ekong has suffered a similar injury, and both will be out “for the forseeable future” according to Hodgson.
“It’s a muscle strain, the same with Troost-Ekong,” said Hodgson, 74, of Sarr. “It’s going to keep them both out of the equation for the foreseeable future, but I don’t know how long exactly.
“It’s not a minor thing, it’s not a knock, both have muscle strains, and that can take anything from a week to four weeks to recover from.”
With the possibility of Troost-Ekong being out for up to four weeks, he has become a major doubt for the World Cup playoffs against Nigeria’s bitter rivals. Chidozie Awaziem is the only centre-back in the stand-by list of the 32-man squad Super Eagles head coach Austin Eguavoen named on Friday.
Troost-Ekong has found playing time hard to come by at Watford under Hogson but he is a key player for the Super Eagles, featuring in all the team’s four games at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon in January.
