Hugo Ekitike Is A $115 Million Gamble Worth Taking For Liverpool

As Liverpool FC’s interest in a transfer deal for Eintracht Frankfurt striker Hugo Ekitike has turned from rumour into something more concrete, it raises questions around how effective the Frenchman would be for Liverpool and whether he is worth the money it would take to sign him from the German Bundesliga club.

Ekitike has a release clause of $100 million ($116 million), and Eintracht Frankfurt are thought to be holding out for something close to that figure.

Newcastle, who were also heavily linked to Ekitike, were thought to have made a bid approaching $95 million, which Eintracht Frankfurt turned down.

This means Liverpool will have to shell out another large sum in this transfer window, having already spent $39 million on Jeremie Frimpong, $134 million on Florian Wirtz, and $54 million on Milos Kerkez, so spending another big fee on a forward could be seen as a gamble.

Liverpool has also been linked to Newcastle United forward Alexander Isak, who is constantly the subject of transfer rumours, but Newcastle will be eager to keep him, having qualified for the UEFA Champions League ahead of the 2025/26 season.

At times, it has appeared as if Ekitike has been used as leverage for Liverpool to sign Isak from Newcastle, but Ekitike has been on Liverpool’s radar for some time, and their interest this summer has always been genuine since the transfer links first emerged early in the year.

The way Liverpool’s recruitment process works, they will often have a profile, compiled over several years, of a player they have some interest in. So when an opportunity arises to sign one of these players, much of the research is already done.

This will be the case with Ekitike, who Liverpool will have known about since his time with Reims, when he was also making appearances at international level with the French U20 side. He was part of the France team that won the 2022 Maurice Revello Tournament (formerly the Toulon Tournament), which is one of the more high profile youth tournaments at that age group and heavily scouted. Though he picked up an injury in the semifinal, his presence and style will still have been noticed.

Even when they are not signing players, the shrewdest operators in the transfer market are always profiling players in preparation, should they become available. This is why certain clubs, including Liverpool, can be linked with having interest many players throughout each season, but the “monitoring” status often means nothing more than that.

If a club isn’t “monitoring” these top-end talents from a young age, then they are doing something wrong. The move for Ekitike and those other new signings this summer is the result of such background work at a club that now has the capacity to move in the market and has money to spend.

Adding what will likely end up at around another $115 million to the transfer outlay for Ekitike might be considered a risk for Liverpool, but all of that background work makes it less of one.

It is also a position in which Liverpool has something of a blank canvas to work with. As long as the player fits the defensive, off-ball profile required by the club, then the attacking side of the game offers a chance to experiment.

Darwin Núñez and Luis Díaz have both been linked with moves away from Liverpool, and will go some way towards funding any deal for Ekitike, but as football finance expert Chris Weatherspoon reported in March, and following the Florian Wirtz deal in June, the way Liverpool has been run by Fenway Sports Group means they have the scope to spend big in certain moments, and this is one of those moments.

Liverpool are not spending money they don’t have, or they are at least spending money within financial fair play rules, so it is not a gamble in that sense.

Ekitike is a combination of the finished article—a player who can offer something to Liverpool immediately—but also a project signing, in that he has the potential to take his game to another level.

He is seen as a similar profile to that of Isak when the Swede arrived in the Premier League from Real Sociedad in 2022. The 25-year-old has gone on to become one of the top strikers in the game and has helped propel Newcastle back to the Champions League.

Liverpool hopes the 23-year-old Frenchman will have a similar impact at Anfield which, in the case of the 2025 Premier League champion, means helping it defend that title while also pushing for success in cup competitions.

The graphic below, from FBref, gives a basic overview of how well the profiles of Isak and Ekitike match up.

Ekitike is a rangy forward whose output includes link-up play and dribbling as well as goals. His 6-foot-3 frame doesn’t always convert to winning aerial duels as much as might be expected, but it does help him in other areas of the game.

While it would benefit Liverpool to have someone who is an obvious fit and can offer some of what previous forwards have brought, sometimes a club needs something different, slightly more unorthodox, compared to what they already have in order to move the needle and at the extra edge required to stay at the top level. This, potentially, is what Ekitike can provide.

Still in his early 20s, Ekitike will also have re-sale value if the transfer doesn’t quite work out as planned, but Liverpool will have confidence in their groundwork, and confidence that this will be another transfer where much of the risk has been eliminated, even if the transfer fee is a substantial one.