The Reds are once again investing a fortune in a forward of undoubted potential, but very little experience
Three years ago, Liverpool paid an initial £64 million ($86m) for Darwin Nunez, a young striker with just one prolific season under his belt. The gamble did not pay off. On the contrary, it backfired badly, with the Uruguayan now regarded as one of the most disappointing deals in the club's history.
It's fascinating, then, that Liverpool have now committed even more money to signing another forward with a less impressive CV than that of Nunez back in 2022.
So, why were the Reds willing to stump up an initial £69m ($92.7m) for Hugo Ekitike? And what chance does he have of succeeding where Nunez failed so spectacularly? GOAL explores one of the biggest and most intriguing transfers of the summer so far…
GettyDisastrous Darwin decision
Liverpool began their search for a new No.9 long before the end of the 2021-22 season. As far as the Reds' recruitment team was concerned, there were three outstanding young strikers in Europe at the time – Nunez, Alexander Isak and Erling Haaland – and that view would have been shared by scouts all across the continent.
As Liverpool's former director of research Ian Graham recently revealed, Haaland was out of their price range, meaning they were left with a straight choice between Isak or Nunez. Then-manager Jurgen Klopp favoured the latter, so the Reds signed the Uruguayan. It proved a disastrous decision.
While Isak established himself as one of the most feared forwards in the Premier League after joining Newcastle from Real Sociedad in August 2022, Nunez became a laughing stock, a maddeningly frustrating forward mercilessly mocked for his atrocious finishing.
Liverpool's desire to sell him this summer has, thus, come as no surprise. He has had numerous chances to prove his worth at Anfield and, rather fittingly, failed to take any of them.
AdvertisementGetty Images SportFailing to land Isak – again
Nonetheless, It would be unfair to be overly harsh on Klopp for buying Nunez. The striker really did look like a potential star at Benfica. He was big, strong, quick and had scored 34 goals in 41 appearances in all competitions during the 2021-22 campaign.
What's more, six of those goals had come in the Champions League, including one apiece in both legs of Benfica's quarter-final tie with Liverpool. With his direct, all-action style and mix of pace and power, Nunez had tormented the likes of Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate, who were only too happy to see him go from opponent to team-mate just a few months later.
Of course, excitement soon gave way to bewilderment, as it became painfully clear that Nunez simply couldn't be relied upon to stay onside – let alone score goals. In that sense, Liverpool are lucky that they're likely to make back quite a bit of the money they wasted on Nunez, even if Napoli's withdrawal from the race to sign him is an undeniable blow.
However, Liverpool's hopes of righting a wrong by belatedly bringing Isak to Anfield appear to be over, with Newcastle having understandably deemed it better to let the Reds have Ekitike rather than Isak. That development has disappointed plenty of supporters, who were salivating at the prospect of seeing the Swedish striker in the same side as Mohamed Salah and Florian Wirtz.
After all, Isak is, unlike Ekitike, Premier League-proven. His quality simply cannot be questioned after netting 44 times in his last 64 outings in England's top-flight. Ekitike, by contrast, remains something of an unknown quality in the eyes of most Liverpool fans – but, crucially, not to the club's recruitment team.
AFPWinding road to the top
Liverpool haven't suddenly turned their attention to Ekitike after missing out on Isak. He was a long-term target.
The media first got wind of their interest in the Frenchman long before the end of his breakout season in Germany, but nearly every elite European club has been monitoring his progress since he started making a real name for himself at Reims following a highly successful loan spell at Danish outfit Vejle, in 2021.
Indeed, Newcastle first tried to sign Ekitike in January 2022 but he joined Paris Saint-Germain instead that summer, admitting that, as a Frenchman, he found the lure of Parc des Princes impossible to resist. In hindsight, that move was a mistake. There was very little room for such a raw teenage talent in a forward line containing Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
"I progressed at such a high speed at Reims, but I also came back down at the same speed," Ekitike later explained. "Not everyone has experienced that and I don't wish it on anyone, it's not easy."
Eintracht offered him a way out of PSG in the summer of 2023, but he was initially reluctant to take it, so desperate was he to prove himself at Paris. However, after earning just nine minutes of game time during the first half of the season, Ekitike belatedly accepted a move to Deutsche Bank Park in January 2024 – and he's not looked back since.
(C)Getty ImagesCatching fire in Frankfurt
Ekitike improved exponentially in Frankfurt. As he said himself, he went from substitute to star in just over a year. Forming a formidable partnership with Omar Marmoush was key, but it was the way in which he revelled in the role of leading man following the Egyptian's January move to Manchester City that really made Liverpool and others sit up and take notice.
There was a legitimate fear that Eintracht's bid to finish in the top four of the Bundesliga would collapse without Marmoush – but Ekitike excelled as a lone frontman. He was directly involved in 12 goals after Marmoush's exit – seven of which he scored himself – as Dino Toppmoller's ended up finishing third.
By that point, sporting director Markus Krosche knew that the club had little chance of holding onto "one of the most interesting players on the European market". His only objective, therefore, was ensuring that Eintracht got top dollar for their prized possession – and it's fair to say that it's been realised.
There's simply no hiding the fact that a fee that could rise to £79m ($106m) is an outrageous sum of money for an inexperienced forward who Eintracht paid €16.5m (£14/$19m) for just 18 months ago. At least Uruguay international Nunez had impressed in the Champions League; Ekitike has only made four goal-less appearances in Europe's premier club cup competition, while he's yet to be capped at senior level by France.
However, all of that doesn't necessarily mean that Liverpool have signed another dud – far from it, in fact.
