Rumblings that Newcastle were preparing to launch a big money move for Eintracht Frankfurt striker Hugo Ekitike with an eye to playing him alongside Alexander Isak never made a great deal of sense from the outside.
Quality and depth are needed at a top club, and Newcastle have aspirations of being counted as such this season as they enter the Champions League, but a tactical shift to allow the duo to co-exist under Eddie Howe or using Ekitike as a bench option always seemed something of a stretch.
News today that Liverpool were making an approach for Isak, their long-rumoured top forward target and the Premier League’s top striker last season, felt if anything as though it put Newcastle’s Ekitike pursuit into better context.
However, that pursuit does not appear to be going entirely smoothly, with the BBC’s Sam Mokbel claiming they have today a £70M offer for Ekitike has been rejected—and Liverpool are keeping tabs on Ekitike and could move for the 23-year-old French forward should Isak prove a non-starter.
Meanwhile, multiple outlets including The Times and Daily Mail Newcastle specialist Craig Hope both have The Magpies bracing for a formal £130M bid for Isak from The Reds. If we were trying to read tea leaves, there seems a clear narrative taking shape.
Hugo Ekitike to Newcastle. Alexander Isak to Liverpool. With both deals coming in at what neutral observers would consider the very top end—or a little beyond that—of what feels a massively inflated market for strikers this summer.
There’s still plenty of posturing from Newcastle, of course. Suggestions they don’t want to sell. An insistence that Ekitike isn’t meant to be Isak’s replacement. Yet it’s hard to take any of that too seriously. The deals may not be done or certain, but they’re perhaps starting to feel more likely than not.
As for Liverpool, with the expectation still that Darwin Nuñez will depart and the transfer chatter surrounding Luis Diaz and Bayern Munich now not going away, it’s clear a top striker needs to be—and it seems certain will be—signed.
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