We are in the thick of silly season at the moment, as various players look to make moves for their careers (and their bank accounts, let’s be honest), and Liverpool is no exception.
News has broken recently that the Reds have started moving towards securing the services of French striker Hugo Ekitike, amidst reports that they are also continuing to pursue Newcastle’s Alexander Isak. When the reports about Ekitike came out earlier this week it was assumed that Liverpool would be pulling out Isak negotiations but BBC is now reporting that that might not be the case.
Newcastle, to their credit, have maintained publicly that their position on selling Isak is “get lost” whenever Liverpool have sent bids in, but the Swedish attacker is also on the final two years of his contract so it might behoove the Magpies to sell him when he’s at his market peak as opposed to letting him run down his contract and leave on a free. A problem that Liverpool is unfortunately very familiar with.
Of course, there is still plenty of time for all of this to change. Darwin Núñez could still leave, Luis Diaz could also leave, and all of this doesn’t include the prospect of having to fill the spot Diogo Jota has left behind. Those two major departures may force the Reds to be a bit more aggressive in their efforts to lock down Isak and Ekitike, and as soon as possible.
The Community Shield is a little over three weeks away, and the sooner one or both strikers joins the squad the better, to give them the most time to integrate with the new look squad and hit the ground running with the Premier League champions.