It’s worse than we thought. Hwang Hee-chan (28, Wolverhampton Wanderers) will need six weeks to recover from a hamstring injury.
Wolverhampton lost 0-3 away to Newcastle United in the 27th round of the 2023-2024 English Premier League (EPL) season at St. James’ Park in Newcastle, England, on Wednesday (Jan. 3).
It was a lethargic defeat. Without top scorers Hwang Hee-chan and Mateusz Cunha, Wolverhampton’s teeth were gritted, and their defense was shaky after a midweek FA Cup game. Wolverhampton conceded two goals in the first half and quickly fell apart.
After the game, Wolverhampton manager Gary O’Neill said: “Obviously, it doesn’t help that we’re missing some good players. But the players that did come in did a really good job. 바카라사이트 But we lost Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan, and we lost Joao Gomes. If you add to that the injuries to José Sa and Pedro Neto, who were substituted at halftime, we’re in the toughest situation we’ve ever been in.”
Hwang collapsed during the FA Cup round of 16 tie against Brighton on May 29.
He started the game and limped off with pain in the back of his thigh nine minutes into the second half before being replaced by Neto. The hamstring is an injury-prone area, so it was a concern.
Fortunately, it didn’t appear to be anything major. After the 1-0 win over Brighton, O’Neill said: “I’m disappointed for Hwang because he’s got a game (against Newcastle) at the weekend. He felt something in his hamstring. It’s not a big thing like Neto or Cunha. It’s a small problem.”
O’Neill added, “I hope it’s a week to ten days (out),” giving an approximate recovery timeframe. Naturally, expectations grew that Hwang would be back in about two weeks.
But it turns out the injury was worse than expected. “He had a tight hamstring last week,” O’Neill said shortly after the Newcastle game, “and he wanted to keep playing. He wanted to keep playing, but if he did, he would have injured himself. So we had to play Netou, who also has a tight hamstring,” he said.
Hwang is not expected to return for another six weeks.
“He’s going to need about six weeks (to recover),” O’Neill said. That’s obviously a disaster for us at this point. He and Cunha will probably come back around the same time. Right now it looks like Cunha will be back a little bit earlier. Neto’s injury today is also far from an ideal picture,” he sighs.
“We are the team with the most injuries in the league. We’ve managed to stay competitive so far, but it’s really hard to do that for a whole season. We are in a difficult situation with players getting injured and we need to find answers.”
If it takes six weeks to rehabilitate, she won’t be back in March. If O’Neill is right, Hwang won’t be back on the pitch until mid-April.
For Wolverhampton, this would be a “disaster”. Hwang has been an integral part of Wolverhampton’s offense this season, and he’s on pace for a career-high 10 goals and three assists in the league alone after being converted to a central striker. Losing Cunha and Hwang would be a huge blow.
It’s also unexpectedly bad news for the South Korean national soccer team. South Korea will play Thailand in March during the A-match period, the second of two Asian qualifiers for the 2026 North and Central American World Cup. 안전 토토사이트 The team has been rebuilding since the firing of Jürgen Klinsmann and the appointment of interim coach Hwang Sun-hong, but for the time being, they will be without Hwang in the attacking lineup.