HUGO EKITIKE returns to Eintracht Frankfurt Wednesday with a point to prove – and a £125million British transfer record signing to keep out of the team.
Indeed, Liverpool’s three big-money summer recruits from the Bundesliga all head back to Germany desperate to elbow their way back into Arne Slot’s bullet-ridden team.
French striker Ekitike, a £79m buy from Eintracht, along with the former Bayer Leverkusen pair of Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong, all started Sunday’s A-list fixture with Manchester United on the bench.
Both Ekitike and Wirtz were included in the Bundesliga Team of the Season for 2024-25, with Frimpong and Wirtz given the same honour after Leverkusen’s unbeaten title campaign the previous year.
The trio cost Liverpool a combined £230m and yet none were trusted to start the visit of United – who achieved their first victory at Anfield in almost ten years and sentenced the champions to a fourth straight defeat.
For Ekitike, this was particularly galling, given that he is the only one of Liverpool’s raft of summer signings to have hit the ground running on Merseyside.
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Hugo was bossing it after netting five goals in his first eight appearances – including strikes in the Community Shield defeat by Crystal Palace, as well as the opening two Premier League victories over AFC Bournemouth and Newcastle United.
Yet the former Eintracht man has since been ditched by Slot, in favour of Alexander Isak.
As Wayne Rooney pointed out on Sunday, Ekitike deserves to be in Slot’s team ahead of Isak – who has failed to score a league goal for his new club and looks rusty after his one-man strike action to force a deadline-day move out of Newcastle.
Ekitike, 23, is seriously hard done by. He signed for the Reds not knowing they would splash out a record fee on another striker.
And while it is often fiendishly difficult for players to settle into the English top flight after moving from abroad, Ekitike – with his pace, his nimble feet and his eye for goal – has endured no such problems.
A goal in the derby victory over Everton was followed by another in the Carabao Cup defeat of Southampton – but with it came Ekitike’s only copybook blot so far, when he was sent off after receiving a second yellow for removing his shirt in celebration.
Slot jumped on that incident – describing Ekitike’s actions as ‘stupid’.
Yet the France striker has looked far sharper than Isak in the duo’s nascent Liverpool careers.
Whether the two could operate in tandem is an interesting question. They were briefly paired as an old-school strike partnership when Ekitike was introduced against United and both men are capable of playing wide on the left, although Cody Gakpo has been in decent form in that position.
Ekitike’s goals did much to fire Eintracht into the Champions League – 15 of them in 33 appearances during his only full Bundesliga campaign.
But he is hardly being missed at his old club – his replacement Jonathan Burkhardt, recruited from Mainz, has netted six times in his last six games in an Eintracht side who are German football’s great entertainers.
In just ten games this season, Dino Toppmoller’s men have scored 30 goals and conceded 24.
That includes a ridiculous 6-4 win at Borussia Moenchengladbach, as well as two Champions League fixtures which have ended 5-1 – a victory over a Galatasaray side who went on to defeat Liverpool, followed by a thumping defeat at Atletico Madrid.
So whatever happens, we should expect entertainment and goals.
And we should also expect Ekitike, Wirtz and Frimpong to feature, given that Slot shuffled his pack for that previous Champions League date in Istanbul.
All three of Slot’s Bundesliga boys appear to be misfits right now.
Wirtz, a sublime playmaker, has struggled to adapt in a team which has not been used to operating with an authentic No10 and is yet to score or assist in the Premier League.
His subtlety is sure to shine through at some point but for now the Germany international is a classic case of an import finding it tough to adapt to the bedlam of the English game.
And Frimpong – an ultra-attacking wing-back for Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen – does not look at home in a flat back four and is no ideal bedfellow for Mo Salah on Liverpool’s right flank, having recently been benched in favour of Conor Bradley.
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In German football, they like to use the phrase ‘S.E.M’ – Stupid English Money.
And at present, on the basis of Liverpool’s £230m raid on the Bundesliga, you would have to make them right.
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