3 hours ago
35
Last season, Liverpool had five senior attacking options — plus the rarely-used Federico Chiesa — to call upon as Arne Slot's side won the Premier League title.
After a summer of changes, the Dutchman kept Chiesa and now has four others: Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike, Cody Gakpo, and Mohamed Salah. You could argue that Florian Wirtz should count as a forward, and then there is Rio Ngumoha.
To suggest that Liverpool was wasting money by making a signing for the sake of it when it agreed to spend $169 million (£125 million) on Isak shortly after splashing a cool $106 million (£79 million) on Ekitike, then, is nonsense.
Slot wants to have two players in each position, ideally, and going into the campaign with just one number nine would have been madness. So too would buying a worse player than Ekitike, so there was a clearer pecking order.
Competition is exactly what drives success. Luis Diaz, for instance, played better than ever before at Liverpool last season (at least in terms of his goal and assist numbers), primarily because he was battling for a spot with Gakpo.
Between the two left-wingers, they scored 35 times in all competitions. It is likely — in part because of freshness and in part down to competition — that neither would have reached such heights without the other.
Having Isak and Ekitike is a similarly beneficial scenario for the pair. And there is no question that the latter would have been aware of the interest in the former when he was signed first, rejecting several other clubs, including Chelsea, to move to Anfield.
"He’s a very good player," Ekitike said of Isak after the Champions League win over Eintracht Frankfurt when they started together. "I know in time we need to work together and find a good association, but the links will come and it will work."
That match in Germany, against Ekitike's former club, is the only game so far in which they have been named in the same starting XI (they have played 62 minutes alongside each other in total).
In the coming weeks, though, as Isak's fitness increases, it is surely a plan that will have to be replicated.
This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more
Right now, Ekitike is deserving of a regular spot in the starting XI because of his performances. At the same time, Arne Slot knows that the only way to get Isak up to speed is to play him.
After breaking the British transfer record to snap Isak up from Newcastle, he isn't going to sit on the bench forever. At the same time, Ekitike is also making himself a must.
That leads to only one conclusion: the Liverpool striking duo, in addition to rotating a little to keep each other fresh and avoid further injuries, will inevitably end up playing together more often.
After spending so much to bring them in during the summer, that should hardly be a surprise, but the time will soon come for Slot's $275M plan to get another outing.
English (US) ·