Hugo Ekitike became the first Liverpool player this season to score a brace in any competition, as he scored twice in quick succession against Leeds.
The Reds probably edged the first half but did not have anything to show for it at half-time — but that had all changed just a few minutes into the second half, as the Reds moved into a two-goal lead.
Both of those goals were scored by Ekitike, with the first coming as he pounced on a misplaced pass by Joe Rodon to finish clinically, and the second coming when he bravely attacked a cross from Conor Bradley and got his reward when the ball ricocheted in off his leg.
Perhaps surprisingly — given Liverpool has the likes of Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak in its ranks — Ekitike's brace is the first scored by a Liverpool player since March 2025, when Salah scored two penalties in a win over Southampton.
The last player to score a brace for Liverpool, with both of their goals coming from open play, was Cody Gakpo, all the way back in January of this year.
There were a couple of other interesting statistics to emerge off the back of Ekitike's brace against Leeds.
One of them was that Ekitike is the first player to score two goals in the first five minutes of the second half of a Premier League game since Raheem Sterling in 2019, while he is also the first French player to score a brace for Liverpool since Djibril Cisse in 2006.
None of the above will be of much interest to Liverpool's supporters at the moment, though, after the team surrendered a commanding position to draw the game at Elland Road.
Ekitike's quick brace put the Reds in control, but goals from Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Anton Stach pulled the scores back level to 2-2.
Liverpool was soon back in front through Dominik Szoboszlai, but in the fifth minute of injury time, Ao Tamaka prodded the ball beyond Alisson to rescue a point for the West Yorkshire team.

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