Liverpool have their new centre-forward then. At least one of them, anyway.
Hugo Ekitike is set to put pen to paper on a six-year deal with the Premier League champions once he’s been given the all clear following his medical. The Reds have agreed to pay Eintracht Frankfurt an initial £69million for the highly-sought after striker.
Ekitke was wanted by the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and Newcastle but opted to move to Anfield after a zoom call with Arne Slot in March.
Things moved quickly.
Just last week, the champions were being linked with moves for Benjamin Sesko and Jean-Phillipe Mateta, as well as Ekitike and Alexander Isak.
The big decision for those in charge of recruitment on Merseyside was whether they would opt for a guarantee, someone with Premier League experience and a history of goals to truly maximise the next two years of Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, or whether they’d decide to put their trust in a project forward.
They eventually settled on a compromise in the form of Ekitike.
Despite being just 23 he’s had quite the career already. He was on the books of Reims but spent some time on loan in Denmark with Vejle BK. He returned to France and caught the eye during his one full season in Ligue 1, scoring 10 goals in 24 appearances as a 19-year-old.
Courted by a host of big clubs, with Newcastle favouring him over Isak at the time, he eventually moved to Paris Saint Germain for a fee believed to be in the region of €35million.
It didn’t work out for him in the French capital though and Eintracht Frankfurt, as they so often do, swooped in to sign the undervalued striker. He impressed on loan and then moved to Germany on a permanent basis for a fee of €16million.
During his sole season in the Bundesliga, he scored 15 goals, chipped in with eight assists and had the second highest (21.7) expected goals (xG) haul in the league - only Serhou Guirassy had a higher total (22.9).
Ekitike is young but he’s a lot more rounded than most. There’s a reason that his FBref similar players list contains the likes of Ousmane Dembele, Omar Marmoush, Vinicius Junior, Isak and Harry Kane.
Liverpool opted for him over other candidates because of his ability right now and his potential in the future.
The France Under-21 international epitomises exactly what Slot wants from his centre-forward.
Speaking in a press conference ahead of the Carabao Cup semi-final second-leg against Spurs, the Dutch tactician was asked about the type of attacker he likes to have in his team, and whether he wants more of a 'facilitator' rather than a goalscorer.
“I will be happy if that player becomes both.‘Facilitator’, nice word, I didn’t know that one yet, and scoring goals himself – that is, again, what we want to achieve in the end. But I also saw the penalty (at Bournemouth) from Cody [Gakpo] where Lucho [Luis Diaz] played a part without even touching the ball.
“He dragged the centre-back out which led to Cody being in a one-vs-one and he made a deep run and got tripped. In the end you want attackers and midfielders to score, we’ve spoken about our attacking midfielder as well. We need to get goals from many positions, including them and including centre-backs that can score from set-pieces also.
“So, that’s what I just said, we are trying to work on the training ground and with the feedback we give them after the game to make team better and better and better and in the end, the No. 9 should be a facilitator, like a winger, but a winger and a No. 9 should also score goals.”
Slot wants his No9 to be able to do a bit of everything. And Ekitke does a bit of everything.
Last season, for example, he had a total of 117 shots in the Germany top flight with a per 90 average of 4.02. For context, only two players in the Premier League last term had an average of over four. One of them left in January (Jhon Duran) while the other racked up just 1,100 minutes (Julio Enciso), so his numbers were skewed by the limited sample size.
Despite the volume of efforts, he wasn’t someone who just spammed shots from stupid distances. Just 24% of his attempts were from outside of the box and he had an xG per shot average of 0.2.
To paint more of a picture of how impressive this is, Salah, the best player in the Premier League last term and the top scorer, had an xG per shot average of 0.21. Erling Haaland had an xG per shot average of 0.22 and Alexander Isak had an average of 0.23.
Ekitike is right-footed but did take 15% of his shots last term with his left, as well as playing 26% of his key passes on his weaker side. Interestingly, his xG per shot on his left side was 0.22.
So, he’s a goal threat. Liverpool want a goal threat. People will focus on his underperformance in the final third. But does it really matter? The Eintracht Frankfurt man’s underperformance really is irrelevant as Liverpool, with nerds in charge, don’t pay for output, they pay for the threat.
Ekitike is a genuine goal threat.
You pay for that. And you pay big money for that. Dr. Ian Graham said as much in his book.
“A scout or a coach would say, ‘Why do we like this forward?’ His analytics team would respond, ‘He takes loads of really good shots.’ The scout or coach would counter, ‘Yeah, but does he drive inside enough? Does he bring his teammates into play enough?’ ‘But we're playing them up front,’ Graham said. ‘He takes loads of good quality shots.
“There is literally nothing else to say. All other arguments, they're second-order effects compared to this. But people love to mystify and bring more and more factors into play. A use of the data is just to say: This is the important thing and we might be wrong about it — we sometimes are wrong — but you have to come up with some really good arguments against this one really important thing.’”
“He takes loads of good quality shots. There is literally nothing else to say.”
That is the argument for Ekitike. He takes loads of good shots.
The Reds need a goal threat. But they need more than that.
And Ekitike is more than that.
He’s deceptively good in possession. He carries the ball and he’s efficient with his progressive passes. He’s also a creator too, with an expected assists (xA) average of 0.19 and 3.55 shot-creating actions per 90. Ekitike receives the ball in dangerous areas and does well with the ball in these situations. That is it, in a nutshell.
He’s not just a goalscorer. He’s not just a No9 who shoots.
He’s not overly direct but he carries the ball a lot. He retains the ball well and he’s heavily involved for a centre-forward. Exactly what you want from a striker who is going to be in a possession-dominant side. He’s not going to have to scale massively to fit in with the Premier League champions.
He’s a goalscorer, a goal threat, a carrier and a creator, of sorts. He’s that facilitator that Slot was talking about.
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