- 15 hours ago
Phil Foden: How long will Man City star miss after appendicitis?
Robin Bairner
- 26 Mar 2023 17:39 BST
- 3 min read
Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden missed England’s European Championship qualifier against Ukraine because of appendicitis, it has been confirmed.
The 22-year-old had to have surgery to remove his appendix because of the illness and joined Chelsea Reece James in dropping out of the squad because of an “ongoing issue”.
City confirmed the news with a brief statement on their website that read: “Phil will now return to Manchester to begin rehabilitation.
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“He will not be fit for this weekend's Premier League game at home to Liverpool and it is unclear at this stage how long he will be unavailable for.”
City also face going into that match without Erling Haaland, whose participation in the game will be “complicated” after he missed international duty with Norway this week.
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How long will Foden be out for?
Although City have not been drawn on the likely length of time that Foden, who is the third most valuable footballer in the world, according to FootballTransfers’ calculations, will miss, there are precedents in the past that point to when fans can hope for him to return.
Numerous footballers have had a similar operation to have their appendix removed. For example, in 2011, Luka Modric had acute appendicitis and missed two weeks of action following surgery.
Man City's fixtures in April
| Date | Opponents | Competition |
|---|---|---|
| 1 April | Liverpool (h) | PL |
| 8 April | Southampton (a) | PL |
| 11 April | Bayern Munich (h) | CL |
| 15 April | Leicester (h) | PL |
| 19 April | Bayern Munich (a) | CL |
| 22 April | Sheffield United (h) | FA Cup |
| 26 April | Arsenal (h) | PL |
| 30 April | Fulham (a) | PL |
More typically, though, it takes around a month for a professional footballer to recover from the illness. Fellow England international Eric Dier missed around that period because of the problem in February 2019.
If Foden was to miss four weeks, it would see him ruled out of some blockbuster fixtures. There is no prospect of him playing against Liverpool at the weekend, but his participation in both legs of the Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich are severely compromised and there is also the huge Premier League clash against Arsenal on 26 April – exactly a month after his diagnosis was confirmed.
