Hugo Ekitike has replaced Darwin Nunez at Liverpool in some style.
The Frenchman has scored two goals in his first two games for Liverpool, netting in the Community Shield defeat to Crystal Palace before opening the scoring against Bournemouth in the Premier League.
Hugo Ekitike has actually made the exact same start to life at Liverpool as Darwin Nunez did – the Uruguay international scored against Manchester City in the 2022 Community Shield before also bagging against Fulham – but Ben Foster has highlighted a notable difference between the two.
Ben Foster feels Hugo Ekitike is a lot calmer than Darwin Nunez
The 42-year-old believes the new Liverpool No.22 has a “calmness in front of goal” that the South American lacked.
Foster said when speaking on his The Cycling GK podcast: “I put a little tweet out on Twitter that actually said: “Is this prime Fernando Torres running around for Liverpool?” A lot of people were saying, it’s his first game.
“I don’t mean as a player. I mean, visually he looks like Fernando Torres. The way he moves, the way he was running. He’s got that retro Liverpool shirt on. I thought he had a fantastic game.
“I think he’s got that calmness. I think that was the bit that was missing with Darwin Nunez, that little bit of calmness in front of goal when it really matters. That split-second moment.”
The Uruguayan was a tad chaotic at Liverpool, head-butting Joachim Andersen on just his second Premier League appearance, before also missing numerous open goals for the Reds.
Ekitike does feel like a much calmer person than Nunez, who Mohamed Salah adores, as well as a more relaxed footballer – you only need to see how well he took his goal against Bournemouth as proof of that.
What the data says about Hugo Ekitike at Liverpool
The Reds are very meticulous when it comes to recruitment, and the underlying data surrounding the 23-year-old striker makes for exciting reading.
Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images
A story from The Athletic states that Liverpool feel Ekitike is capable of emulating both Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe in future – both of whom are arguably the two best players in Europe right now.
If that proves to be true, the £69m fee Liverpool paid to Eintracht Frankfurt will end up looking like a bargain.