The form of Hugo Ekitiké has been a rare highlight for Liverpool this season. We look at just how impressive the France international has been since arriving in England.
It has been a largely disappointing season for Liverpool, with a common criticism being that their big-name signings over the summer of 2025 have not produced the goods to this point.
However, while Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez have shown some improvement in recent weeks, the one new arrival who did hit the ground running is arguably the one there were the most question marks over when he was signed.
Hugo Ekitiké had an excellent season for Eintracht Frankfurt before joining Liverpool, but having struggled at Paris Saint-Germain prior to that, the France international was seen as far less of a sure thing compared to Wirtz and supposedly Premier League-proven duo Kerkez and Alexander Isak.
Ekitiké has been one of Liverpool’s best players this season, though, a view that was cemented further when he scored both goals in the Premier League champions’ 2-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion at Anfield on Saturday.
It was the second league game in a row in which he put his team 2-0 up with a brace, but unlike the chaotic 3-3 draw at Leeds United a week prior, Arne Slot’s men were able to take full advantage of it against Brighton.
Ekitiké has reached double figures for the Reds already in all competitions and has seven goals in his first 10 Premier League starts, the same as Mohamed Salah managed. Only Daniel Sturridge (8 goals) has scored more in the competition for the Reds in his first 10 starts.
The 23-year-old is averaging 0.72 non-penalty goals per 90 in the Premier League. Of players to have played at least 500 minutes this season, only Erling Haaland (1.05) has a better rate. That is particularly impressive when you consider Ekitiké has been in and out of the team, and settling into a side who have frankly been all over the place for much of the season.
It seems odd to say about a signing worth an initial £70 million, potentially rising to £80m with add-ons, but Ekitiké was almost a bit of an afterthought in the summer once Isak signed for £125m. Perhaps that had a positive effect, easing some of the pressure and expectations on the former Eintracht man despite the price tag.
We explained in July the ways in which Ekitiké is a similar player to Isak, or at least, his output in Germany was not far away from the Swede’s at Newcastle United. But as it has turned out, their starts to life at Anfield couldn’t have been more different. Ekitiké has 10 goals in 23 games (16 starts) while Isak has just two in 15 appearances (10 starts).
It is not entirely a fair comparison, though. Ekitiké arrived with the best wishes of his former club, there were no protracted negotiations, and the player took part in a good chunk of pre-season after joining the team in Hong Kong during their tour. Isak had little to no pre-season after a toxic end to his time at Newcastle, not even training with his new teammates until after the first international break of the season in September.
Isak will surely settle eventually and start scoring goals like he did in the north east. After sustaining a slight knock in the win at Inter, though, he had to settle for the bench while Ekitiké led the line alone against Brighton, and the Frenchman showed why, right now, he has to be considered Liverpool’s first-choice striker.
This is not just a run of good recent form, either. Ekitiké has impressed from the start, scoring on his Liverpool debut in the Community Shield, then finding the net again in his first Premier League appearance against Bournemouth. In fact, Ekitiké started each of Liverpool’s first five league games, all of which they won.
He came off the bench to score the winner in the League Cup third round against Southampton as well, but removing his shirt during his celebration led to a needless red card that meant he was suspended for the 2-1 defeat at Crystal Palace.
That loss was the start of Liverpool’s form falling off a cliff, completely turning their season around. They went from five points clear at the top of the league to sitting in the bottom half of the table in just a few weeks, losing six of seven Premier League matches from the Palace game on. They were also eliminated from the League Cup by the Eagles.
To show how influential Ekitiké has been, Liverpool have won seven of the 10 league games he’s started this season (D1 L2), but just one of the six he hasn’t (D1 L4). They have also averaged exactly two goals per game when he’s started, compared to just one per game when he hasn’t.
Ekitiké’s 10 goals for Liverpool in all competitions are at least twice as many as any of his teammates, but he does more than just find the net.
It was clear from his time at Eintracht that Ekitiké likes to carry the ball. Only three players from Europe’s top five leagues totalled more shot-ending carries than him last season, and after 16 games in 2025-26, just three players in the Premier League have more than his 1.14 shot-ending carries per 90 (min. 500 minutes).
Despite technically being a central striker, Ekitiké likes to drift out wide to receive the ball. You can see this from his heat map below; he gets involved in all areas of the opposition’s half.
His performance against Brighton was more than just his two goals. He completed three of his four dribbles – only Curtis Jones (four of five) completed more for Liverpool – including one where he stormed past Carlos Baleba before pulling the ball back to the edge of the box, ultimately ending in Wirtz setting him up for a volley that went just wide. There was another in the second half when he beat three men dribbling inside from the left, before dragging a shot wide of the left-hand post.
Ekitiké also gets more involved than most strikers. He is averaging 37.6 touches per 90 in the Premier League this season; of forwards who predominantly play centrally, only Chelsea’s João Pedro (45.6) has averaged more this season in England’s top flight (min. 500 minutes), and the Brazilian has often played as a 10 in recent weeks.
Ekitiké’s 49 touches against Brighton was at least 11 more than he’s had in any other game this season, with the next highest being the previous league game at Leeds, suggesting he is settling more and more into his new team.
Ekitiké came off with cramp in the 78th minute on Saturday having attempted seven shots, the most by a Liverpool player in a game this season; no Reds player has attempted more since Cody Gakpo had eight shots against West Ham in April 2024.
Two of the Frenchman’s shots ended with goals, with the first coming after just 46 seconds. At the time, it was the fastest goal of this Premier League season, before Mateus Fernandes scored after 30 seconds against Aston Villa on Sunday.
It was Liverpool’s first goal in the opening minute of a Premier League game since Naby Keïta netted their fastest ever goal in the competition after 15 seconds vs Huddersfield in April 2019.
Despite being so early, it was superbly taken, showing tremendous awareness just a few seconds into the game. Having been out wide moments earlier to offer a passing option to Jones, Ekitiké made himself available for Joe Gomez to nod the ball to him in the danger area after Yankuba Minteh smashed a clearance into the air. He controlled with the outside of his boot and volleyed into the roof of the net in a fluid motion. To hit a rising ball that accurately showed the confidence he has, and perhaps the finishing ability some didn’t think he had when they just looked at his expected goals (xG) underperformance from last season.
Ekitiké scored 14 Bundesliga goals from 19.2 xG in 2024-25, the worst underperformance compared to xG across Europe’s top five leagues. In our article on Ekitiké in the summer, though, we said: “Underperformance of xG isn’t a red flag for finishing quality unless sustained over a considerable amount of time.”
And so it has proved. He has scored seven goals from 4.24 xG in the Premier League this season, with only Morgan Rogers (3.32) and Phil Foden (3.04) outperforming their xG by more in the division. He needs to keep going, though, because as we also said in July: “The same goes for the opposite, too; if someone scores a lot of goals from a relatively low xG total over a period of one or two seasons, that doesn’t immediately qualify them as a legendary finisher.”
His second goal against Brighton was a simple header when he found himself unmarked from a corner just before the hour mark. Not only was it Ekitiké’s first headed goal for Liverpool, but it was the Reds’ first goal from a corner in the Premier League this season, making them the last team to score from one. Salah swung the ball in for Ekitiké to nod home, clinching the Egyptian’s 277th Premier League goal involvement for Liverpool, breaking Wayne Rooney’s record for most goal contributions for a single club in the competition.
Another thing Ekitiké has carried on from his form in Germany is his ability to rack up impressive non-penalty xG numbers, showing how good he is at getting into dangerous positions. Last season, he had the third-highest xG total from non-penalty shots across the top five European leagues (19.2); this season, only five players have a higher non-pen xG per 90 in the Premier League (min. 500 minutes) than his 0.44.
Slot might have struggled to work out how to get the best out of Wirtz and Isak to date, but he’s seemingly been able to fit Ekitiké into his team relatively seamlessly, which is credit both to him and to the efforts of the player.
After the Brighton win, Slot said: “What I see with [Ekitiké], and I see this with all the players we’ve brought in this summer, they had to adapt to the Premier League, to that intensity, because they were all young. All the players we brought in are young players, except for [Isak], but all the others are very young.
“So, adapting to the Premier League, that intensity, some of them had to adapt to [playing in both] the Premier League and Champions League. I see all of them making progress in that. So, Hugo has cramp today but I can assure you that he did probably twice as much as in games in the beginning of the season where I had to take him off with cramp as well.
“That is what this league brings. If you cannot be so intense for such a long time, it’s so hard to win a game of football because the best players, athletes, in the world play in this league, and we are trying to prepare them more and more, better and better for that – and I can see that progress with most of our signings, maybe all of them.”
So, if his manager is right, it seems there’s potentially even more to come from Ekitiké.
With back-to-back wins in the last week against Inter and Brighton, things are starting to look up again for Liverpool. They will need a lot more victories to fully be back on track, but having Ekitiké in this form should certainly help with that.
Just imagine what he’ll be capable of if Liverpool start performing to the levels many expected them to in the summer.
Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
Hugo Ekitiké’s Compelling Case to be Liverpool’s Main Striker Opta Analyst.
Hence then, the article about hugo ekitike s compelling case to be liverpool s main striker was published today ( ) and is available on The Analyst ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Hugo Ekitiké’s Compelling Case to be Liverpool’s Main Striker )
Also on site :