Why Liverpool could be about to make a £25m mistake in the summer transfer windowplaceholder image
Why Liverpool could be about to make a £25m mistake in the summer transfer window | AFP via Getty Images
Liverpool have been linked with Hugo Ekitike but have they made an offer for the Eintracht Frankfurt forward?
Liverpool’s hunt for a new striker could go until the last days of the transfer window as every club seem to chase the same players but wait for theirs to leave before bids can be entertained.
From the outside, it looks like one club selling or buying a striker could set off a chain of events around Europe with half of the Premier League, the Bundesliga and Serie A linked like a spider’s web if speculation is to be believed.
The names who Liverpool want to replace Napoli-bound Darwin Nunez are Victor Osimhen and Alexander Isak with Hugo Ekitike also a target, despite his reported £85m transfer fee, although Kicker aren’t quite sure just how serious Arne Slot is about signing the Eintracht Frankfurt forward.
Liverpool transfer latest as Kicker make Hugo Ekitike transfer claim
The German football media outlet have named four clubs as being interested in Ekitike, with an update on where the 23-year old will be playing next season: “Liverpool FC might be serious if the transfer of striker Darwin to SSC Napoli goes through . Or one of the London clubs (Chelsea, Arsenal) might come out of hiding. Manchester United is also said to be considering Ekitiké.
“But as long as Eintracht Frankfurt hasn't received an offer, we can only speculate about how highly the Frenchman is actually valued by these clubs. In any case, none of them seem to be in a particular hurry.
“Currently, there's a strong indication that the 23-year-old will begin preseason training in Frankfurt. Coach Dino Toppmöller will likely once again have to come to terms with not knowing whether his top striker will still be there when the transfer window closes in two months.”
Why haven’t Liverpool made an offer for Ekitike?
Frankfurt have realised that there is a shortage of elite level strikers and have slapped a sizeable price tag on Ekitike’s head knowing that someone, if they get desperate, might be willing to make a bid.
What they won’t do is bid early when the likes of Osimhen and Viktor Gyokeres are available for less. It might well be that a club who needs a striker runs out of options and ends up overpaying – the sort of thing that Man Utd have done repeatedly in recent years but that Liverpool have avoided.
That there have been no solid reports of bids or negotiations with the player’s agents by any clubs also suggests that it might even be Frankfurt who are trying to drum up interest by suggesting that England’s big clubs are on the tail of the France Under-21 international.
Not only will they hope that this inflates his value, but that it encourages one team or the other into a bid given how few strikers there are on the market this summer.
If Liverpool sell Nunez, every club will know that they want to replace him, this could make things difficult for Richard Hughes in terms of negotiations. What he needs, is for a striker to do what Gyokeres is in terms of trying to force a move to Arsenal by refusing to even train for Sporting Lisbon.
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