The transfer between Liverpool and Newcastle has ended with the Premier League champion, but Hugo Ekitike will bring anything to The Reds and he is a good alternative for Alexander Isak?
An attacking monster
The beginning is relatively slow at Frankfurt, not to prevent Ekitike gradually integrate into the squad of coach Dino Toppmöller. After signing the contract on February 1, 2024, this young player only had two main kicks and accumulated 312 minutes out of 900 minutes possible in the first 10 Bundesliga matches of the new club.
Coach Toppmöller gave Ekitike the third player in the Bundesliga, in the home match against Augsburg on April 19 and everything began to match. Accordingly, 4 goals of Ekitike in the last 5 matches are the best parameter of Frankfurt at the same time.
Since that day, only Harry Kane (39) and Andrrej Kramaric (29) have contributed more than 28 goals of Ekitike (19 goals, 9 assists) in the top German tournament.
Carrying out the sale to Germany before the 2024/25 season, Ekitike signed a 4 -year contract with Frankfurt. But both sides knew that if Ekitike's performance continued as the last months were lent from PSG, he wouldn't be there for a long time.
And as expected, only one year later Ekitike will move to the Premier League for more than three times the amount Frankfurt paid him. Ekitike's attack performance in the 2024/25 season can explain the reason.
Accordingly, 15 goals of Ekitike helped him end the season with sixth in the list of top scorer in the Bundesliga, while only 7 players created more than 8 times. Ranked 4th in terms of total contribution to the goal (23), Ekitike helped Frankfurt win the highest position in the tournament for 13 years and won the right to attend the Champions League.
Ekitike is very good at bringing teammates into a favorable position, ranked 7th in creating opportunities from the ball (44) in the tournament, but the possibility of appearing in his dangerous areas is most noticeable.
Across the top 5 European tournaments in the 2024/25 season, Ekitike is one of 4 players to play at least 1,500 minutes and have an average of more than 4 shots every 90 minutes (4.1) and more than 7 touches in the opponent's penalty area every 90 minutes (7.2) along with Lamine Yamal, Mbappe and Dembele.
Going deeper into basic figures, Ekitike also has excellent attack performance when considering XG without penalties and tectonic XG.
Once again, just looking at the players playing at least 1,500 minutes across the top 5 European tournaments in the 2024/25 season, Ekitike ranked 5th for XG without penalties every 90 minutes (0.67) and is in the top 50 for tectonic XG (0.24). He is taller than Isak at both indicators.
As a threat to the goal as well as creative, it brought Ekitike into the group of the most terrifying attackers in Europe last season.
Among the attacking midfielders, the winger and the striker played 1,500 minutes across the top 5 European tournaments, only a few could reach an average of the total penalties and tectonic XG every 90 minutes higher than the UK (0.91).
Work hard when there is no ball
Frankfurt is not a team based on the high quality pressing game in the Bundesliga last season. They arranged between the tournament to the PPDA (the opponent's passing number each defense), while only 6 of the other 17 clubs made fewer with higher recovery phase in the 2024/25 season.
But when Frankfurt focused on high pressing on the field, they took advantage of it very well. Only 5 teams have a higher number of shot recovery phase conversion (16.7%) than Frankfurt, only Dortmund (3.4%) and Bayern Munich (4.6%) have the conversion rate into a higher goal than Frankfurt (3.2%). Ekitike played a big role in this.
Although many of Frankfurt's overall pressing data is in the lower half of the Bundesliga, the French player is still among the top 7 players in terms of pressure (both overall and high pressure are considered) in the opponent's yard and the number of pressure at the end of the pitch.
When Frankfurt Pressing is high on the field, very often Ekitike is the best effort. Among all the players of the last season, he reached an average of 15.3 times the high intensity pressure at the end of the pitch every 90 minutes, higher than any teammate.
Newcastle will be an interesting destination for Ekitike, because the injection shows the similarity with Frankfurt, in that they are not too good at pressing but very effective. With Isak choosing to stay in Newcastle, it is easy to understand why Liverpool shifted his attention to the French striker. Stylish, they are very similar.
Isak plays an almost identical role in Newcastle's Pressing play like Ekitike did in Frankfurt last season. Last season, the player was considered the most Ekitike based on Opta's statistical performance, Isak, with a similar rate of 84%. If Isak is Liverpool's first choice, then Ekitike is definitely the second choice.
