According to Fabrizio Romano, Newcastle United have entered the race for Eintracht Frankfurt’s Hugo Ekitike. The 23-year-old French striker has been previously linked with both Liverpool FC and Chelsea this summer transfer window.
This comes at an interesting time in the window. At the start of the transfer window, Frankfurt were adamant they wanted €100 million for the French striker. Word on the street is that they would be open to €80 million now, which makes sense, given how both Liverpool and Chelsea were linked; however, no bids have been sent in. Dropping the price would be an admission that while they wanted a big sale, Eintracht don’t want to compromise a sale with an asking price that completely deters business from being done.
While a move for Ekitike has appeared to depend on the sale of Darwin Nunez for quite some time, there’s also one other big reason why Liverpool haven’t acted on their interest in Ekitike yet. Newcastle’s Alexander Isak is rumoured to want a move to Liverpool. With rumours of Newcastle’s wage structure being unable to match what Liverpool could potentially offer, the possibility remains open for a move, even if it’s difficult.
It was eyebrow-raising when Newcastle pursued João Pedro, but he was at the very least a very different type of player from Isak. Ekitike is a rawer and less refined version of Isak at this point in his career, so pursuing him is a very curious move for Newcastle.
With Newcastle forcing the issue on Ekitike, it appears that we’ll soon find out if Liverpool intend to act on their interest in either Isak or the Frenchman soon.