Erling Haaland could be out until 2022 with hip injury
Borussia Dortmund striker Erling Haaland may not play again this calendar year due to the hip flexor injury he has sustained recently.
The Norwegian is the second top scorer in the Bundesliga this season, behind only Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski, but didn't play at the weekend when BVB beat Arminia Bielefeld.
Dortmund manager Marco Rose previously ruled the 21-year-old out for a few weeks, revealing: "Erling will be out, we'll be without him for a couple of weeks even. He has a hip flexor injury which simply doesn't make it possible for him to play. It's the same thigh, but another location."
However, Bild has since reported that Haaland has 'torn a muscle bundle in the hip flexor', which would leave him unable to feature in full training for at least six weeks.
It would be an undeniably massive blow for Dortmund to lose their talismanic forward for such a long period of time, especially with no obvious candidate ready to step up to replace him up front.
After Haaland and his nine league goals, Raphael Guerreiro is thee club's next top scorer with three strikes, while the likes of Giovanni Reyna, Jude Bellingham, Julian Brandt and Marco Reus all have two.
Dortmund have made an excellent start to the league season and are only a point behind champions Bayern in the Bundesliga standings, but that difference may increase in Haaland's absence.
They have tough games coming up against RB Leipzig and Bayern before the turn of the year, while they still need to negotiate a path out of their Champions League group, having won two of their three matches so far.
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