Liverpool have a superstar on their hands with Hugo Ekitike, and the Frenchman is already entering some exciting conversations.
What a player the Reds have managed to sign. Ekitike’s brace against Newcastle takes him to 15 goals for the season.
He exploded out of the gates at Liverpool and hasn’t looked like slowing down.
The Frenchman is forming a special connection with Florian Wirtz, and making the £69 million fee paid to Eintracht Frankfurt look like a steal.
PROVE ME WRONG: Hugo Ekitike WILL have a better Liverpool career than Luis Suarez
It’s hard to find a fault in his game, and his performances have propelled him to the very top tier of strikers in England — the number one spot, according to Gabby Agbonlahor.
Gabby Agbonlahor ranks Hugo Ekitike as the Premier League’s best number nine
When you talk about Premier League strikers, Erling Haaland is the first name that needs to be brought up.
The Norwegian is a goalscoring machine, already on 27 goals for the season. In recent weeks, though, his output has dropped — enough for Agbonlahor to make a bold claim.
He says on talkSPORT: “[Ekitike] is quick, he’s strong, he’s good in the air, he can finish every sort of finish. His linkup play is very good, and he’s also broken into the French national team and will go to the World Cup.
“He will shine at the World Cup, and I think for me at the moment, on form, he is the best striker in the Premier League.”
The former Aston Villa star is high on Liverpool’s new superstar, and for good reason.
Ekitike has earned comparisons to Thierry Henry with how well-rounded his game is. A criticism many people use against Haaland is that he isn’t elite in some facets of the game.
Still, if Ekitike is to overtake the Man City star, he will have to put up huge numbers over an extended period.
How many goals will Hugo Ekitike end up with this season?
He's surely heading past 20
Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak as a strike partnership
With how impressive Ekitike has been, you would almost forget Alexander Isak is returning to Liverpool action in the coming weeks.
The exact date is still unknown, but once he returns, it will start an intriguing discussion around how best to maximise the two strikers.
One option that has been suggested to Arne Slot is to play both of them up front. They are quite similar in terms of their profiles, but that might not be a bad thing.
If the system can be tweaked to have them interchanging with fluidity, it will cause nightmares for the opposition. Both are more than capable of dropping between the lines or stretching the defence with direct runs in behind.
There has been plenty of scrutiny on Liverpool’s decision to sign both players, but there is a world in which they can both shine at Anfield.
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