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Arne Slot has explained how he can get Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak into the same Liverpool starting XI.
That prospect is not clear-cut, given both expensive summer outlays prefer to play as traditional center forwards, and Slot typically plays a 4-3-3 shape. The Liverpool head coach has previously admitted that getting the pair into the side is not straightforward, although he did start them together in last month’s win over Eintracht Frankfurt as he deployed an unorthodox and fluid 4-4-2 shape.
How Ekitike and Isak play alongside each other is becoming a more pressing topic with the latter now back from injury following a three-week layoff.
Given he is the most expensive signing in British soccer history, there’s a general feeling that Isak must start. However, with Ekitike adapting quickly to life on Merseyside, and scoring more goals than any Liverpool player this season, it’s difficult to envisage him being dropped.
There is a solution, however, as Slot outlined earlier this week in an interview with Owen Hargreaves.
“Hugo could also play off the left in my opinion or maybe around Alex, where Alex is more of a out-and-out no.9,” the Dutchman told TNT Sports.
“He’s just the finisher of the attacks, could drop into midfield.
“But Hugo is yeah, maybe more a player that also likes to drop more in spaces coming off the left, where Alex I think prefers to be in the middle.”
This is not the first time Slot has indicated Ekitike is a more versatile player than Isak, who has struggled with fitness issues since his deadline-day arrival from Newcastle United and is yet to play 90 minutes for the Reds.
“Everything is always possible, so they can [play as wingers], but I think for Alex no.9 is by far his best position,” Slot said earlier this season, when asked about how to get both strikers into the starting XI.
“Hugo has played in the past, when he was younger, as a winger as well, but then he started to grow more and more and more – although Cody Gakpo shows that even if you are really tall you can still be a very good, intelligent winger.
“So Hugo could be a player who could play off the left side, not in the way Cody or Mo is playing, but he could become a second striker.”
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