[Liverpool](https://walkon.com/) owned the souls of Newcastle United on Saturday night at Anfield, as the former Bundesliga attacking duo of Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike thoroughly cooked the Magpies 4-1 at Anfield.
There is a lot of bad blood between Liverpool and Newcastle after what happened in the summer transfer window when superstar striker Alexander Isak, fresh off the best season of his career, dug his feet in and demanded that his club sell him to Liverpool and only Liverpool, leaving Newcastle with no choice but to oblige.
Newcastle did land a pretty good German striker in Nick Woltemade, but they could have signed Hugo Ekitike. Newcastle were fighting Liverpool for Ekitike’s signatur at one point in the summer transfer window, but out of fear of losing Isak preemptively, they decided not to go as hard after the Frenchman with Isak’s situation still in flux.
Well, Newcastle ended up losing both of them when they could have easily been the ones to sign Ekitke, had they been more proactive in courting the Eintracht Frankfurt breakout star.
And as fate would have it, Ekitike was the one who shone the brightest on Saturday with Isak out. He scored two goals with Wirtz feeding him in a real striker’s performance that 2024/25 Isak himself would have been proud of.
It was another star making performance in a big game by Ekitike, who has been Liverpool’s second best player this season after Dominik Szoboszlai. And he made Newcastle look doubly foolish for not signing him as the Isak replacement when they always knew full well that Isak wanted out no matter what. Instant regret.
Joe Soriano is the editor of _The Trivela Effect_ and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2010. He’s led top digital communities like _The Real Champs_ (Real Madrid) and has run sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. He also helped manage _NFL Spin Zone_ and _Daily DDT,_ covering the NFL and pro wrestling.