Hugo Ekitike Reflects on Liverpool Stardom and “Room for Improvement”
Very little has gone to plan for Liverpool in 2025-26, and most of it not for the better. One pleasant surprise, though, has been the emergence of Hugo Ekitike as a star striker. The 23-year-old French international may have signed from Frankfurt in an €80M+ deal, but most expected he would need time to adapt.
Some of that was age, some of that was that he was changing leagues, and some of that was simply that the Reds continued their pursuit of mega-signing Alexander Isak. In any case, the expectation for most was that Ekitike was a signing with an eye to the future despite the hefty price tag. And then he started scoring.
There are of course moments when the fact Ekitike is young, a little raw, and still developing manage to push to the fore, but he has been one of the Reds’ most consistent performers this season, with his goal tally currently stood at 16 and most of anything good in attack for the team this season running through him.
“I think I can be,” Ekitike said this week when asked by TNT Sports if he thought he could become one of the game’s top strikers. “There’s room for improvement, I have to work more, progress more. But obviously I’m where I wanted to be, I’m here, and I’m not scared of anything because I don’t fear pressure.
“People having those kinds of expectations of me, I actually love that. It’s exciting for me to be here, to play in big games, to be involved in big competitions. I always wanted to be in that position and to play in those kinds of games, being at such a big club. That’s what I said when I arrived and I still feel the same.”
Some of the expectations for Ekitike perhaps needing time to settle and adjust also stem from the fact that despite his young age, Liverpool is his second move to a club that aspires to be amongst Europe’s elite every season, having moved to Paris Saint-Germain from Reims in back in 2022 as a 20-year-old.
That move turned out to be too soon in his development, and so Ekitike soon made the switch to Germany and Eintracht Frankfurt for the playing time he needed to take the next step, but even his Parisian adventure helped to prepare the striker for what was to come—and now Liverpool are benefiting from that.
“I learned how to move without the ball, to touch the ball, how to score goals, the confidence in the game,” he added of his time at PSG. “When you look back you think it wasn’t a great time for me, but I think it’s what I needed. I learned so much—when I look back it’s a great picture that I can put in my house.”
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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