Isak? Ekitiké? Both? Neither? A Winger? Centre-Back? My Transfer Assessments

Free Read: Assessment of All Players Linked With Liverpool, and Combinations of Options

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Okay, a simple piece, as I try to make sense of the various (and thus fairly lengthy) possibilities in what remains of the transfer window, with lots of ins and outs on the cards, and lots of potential alternatives.

**Since writing this, Liverpool are now said to have bid for Hugo Ekitiké, but as I’ll note below, this could be true, or it could be bluster. I still think Isak is a possibility, even if the Newcastle journalists disagree.**

Some options…

- Isak joins Liverpool, after Ekitiké joins Newcastle, because the opportunity just arose.

- Isak joins Liverpool, after Ekitiké joins Newcastle, because of a preplanned idea between ex-colleagues Richard Hughes and Eddie Howe (with Howe in charge of transfers), to allow Newcastle to fund rebuild, get in their replacement ahead of time (good practice), then “reluctantly” sell.

- Less likely, Newcastle get/keep both no.9, and switch formation (as neither striker will want to be a backup, and you don’t break your club record for a sub), but Liverpool get Anthony Gordon, if the Magpies need to recoup some money (and they have Harvey Barnes to ‘replace’ Gordon).

- If Liverpool, told that Isak is genuinely NFS, and at that, FNFS, and also get a few WTFs and FOs for their ‘gall’, the Reds can step in and try to get Ekitiké, if the Frenchman hasn’t yet joined Newcastle; with the Reds surely able to do what Chelsea did to Newcastle with João Pedro, if Liverpool really want Ekitiké, and if Isak is really NFS. (Note: this seems to be the way things are panning out, but it could be a case of smoking out movement, by Liverpool, Frankfurt or just rumour-mongering and shit-stirring. It’s hard to believe anything in a world where clubs and agents mislead if it’s in their interest.)

- Ekitiké has been my preference for months, until Isak came into the equation. I always felt Isak would be too expensive … until I wondered if Newcastle would sell to fund a rebuild, and when I worked out how much money Liverpool could raise this summer. That grew with the lack of Isak stating he was staying at Newcastle.

- Don’t judge Ekitiké on one season’s xG conversion, as xG conversion is the most fluctuating metric I can find; and his career average for conversion is about the same as Mo Salah’s. Isak also had a terrible season for xG conversion aged 21, and Saint Diogo had just had a terrible season for xG conversion when Liverpool signed him. Robert Lewandowski had a season so bad with Bayern that it blew the bloody doors off. (That season, if there was a barn door, he couldn’t hit it, albeit you have to have a load of shots to be more than eight goals worse than expected.)

- If Liverpool get a fairly costly wide player for the left to replace Luis Díaz, who seems set to join Bayern for north of £60m, such as Anthony Gordon (whose value will have dipped from last summer, but still wouldn’t be cheap), then getting Jean-Philippe Mateta as a no.9 would make some sense.

- Gordon is five years younger than Díaz, faster, and homegrown. He would also not be doing excessive travelling on internationals. Gordon and Mateta combined would probably be cheaper than Isak on pure fee, and maybe the same on combined wages.

- I mention Gordon, as he was extremely close to joining Liverpool last year, but both the improving Gakpo and new boy Florian Wirtz can play from the left. That said, Gordon can also play from the right, is super-quick, presses hard and is a proper athlete who, in form, can beat players and score goals. (If Liverpool snaffle Ekitiké, then relationships may sour. Unless Newcastle want someone like Harvey Elliott.)

- Liverpool could choose not to replace Díaz (where Liverpool and Bayern will probably compromise soon), and play Wirtz from the left, alternating with Gakpo.

- Liverpool get Ekitiké or Benjamin Šeško, and a talented left-winger who is cheaper than Gordon, but I’ve not seen too many credible links.

- Liverpool sign one extra attacking player to cover for the heartbreaking loss of Saint Diogo.

- Liverpool retain one on the “to sell” list to cover for the heartbreaking loss of Saint Diogo.

- To me, a fit Federico Chiesa, if adapted to life in England by now, is most like Jota in terms of a versatile, both-flanks dribbling winger of a similar age, who can play as a no.9, with a good personality (and great song), and as his transfer value is much lower than that of Darwin Núñez, Díaz, Harvey Elliott and Ben Doak, attackers who could all be sold for different reasons.

- Ben Doak, “academy trained”, stays as backup for Mo Salah; but Jeremie Frimpong is also a right-sided option, especially with Conor Bradley likely to go from strength to strength as a marauding right-back who has more touches in the opposition box per game than Everton*. Doak is clearly a great talent, but playing time may be limited. Yet AFCON is a real problem this year, due to its changed timing, coinciding with a higher number of important games. So Mo Salah could miss seven Premier League games, and also Champions League matches.

(* That’s Everton all season.)

- It’s also worth reiterating that Rio Ngumoha is too young to be a consistent option on the left, even if he is good enough, aged 16 … and he’s pretty damned good. But he could dip in and out of squad if his workload is managed, to avoid stress fractures and growth-related injuries plaguing young players as the game gets harder and faster. There’s no point in risking him being the next Kaide Gordon or Rhian Brewster, to go from 17-year-old hotshot to two years on the sidelines, and being left behind.

- Liverpool get both a new no.9 and a backup no.9 (to replace Saint Diogo), who are either two of the same type, or two different types. One will probably have a real physical presence.

- Ibou Konaté is ‘replaced’ ahead of time by someone like Marc Guéhi, if Konaté won’t sign a new contract, and refuses to be sold to various clubs if Real Madrid are waiting next summer, and if Real Madrid refuse to buy him a year off wanting him for free. (In which case, in a World Cup year, Konaté can be demoted from starter to squad player, and Liverpool can say they want to prioritise those most committed to the cause, whilst not bombing him out completely. We all need to make choices. With France’s centre-back options, that would be World Cup over.)

- Liverpool still need a replacement for Jarell Quansah, and Jorrel Hato, who is also strong at left-back, makes sense given his potential (he’s just turned 19), and the increasingly strong links between Ajax and Liverpool (and that he was at a Liverpool game in January; albeit Arne Slot’s Feyenoord captain Lutsharel Geertruida did the same a year earlier, and went to RB Leipzig, with no sign that Liverpool wanted him. Hato is different as he’s elite already, as a teen).

- Names other than Hato, as a young centre-back for the future, have been mentioned, but nothing too frequent or concrete; Dean Huijsen was the other, and he chose Real Madrid. (But I may have missed something.)

- As I keep noting, Liverpool can raise over £300m this summer from the sales of all the players who are up for sale, and those who have already been sold, with most merely fringe players last season. It is not going to be spent on a lot of good players, but a smaller number of excellent players. Additional money from on-pitch performance may increase budget, while selling academy trained players frees up even more money.

- As such, Liverpool could theoretically spend well over £300m this summer, with PSR headway already baked in from almost no spending in 2024 on new transfer fees. The wage bill should not increase, as a lot of mid-earners (plus higher-earner Trent, aka BT™) would go.

- Based on Capology and other data sources, wages freed up by selling or losing BT™ (£180,000), Konaté (£70,000), Díaz (£55,000), Núñez (£140,000) and Chiesa (£150,000) would free up c.£600,000 a week. Andy Robertson, so impressive this summer as a man (if less so last season as a player) is listed as on £160,000 per week, and the departures of various others on just below or above £50,000 a week could take it up towards £750,000 per week saved, while Diogo Jota’s £140,000 a week will still be paid to his family (but may be covered by insurance; I’m not sure how that works, as something I’d literally never thought about before and hope I never have to think about again).

- Florian Wirtz will be on around £200,000 a week, but Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong will be on much less. The point here is that the mass exits of mostly squad players means there will be a lot of wage leeway. That said, I would be surprised if Isak (currently on £120k a week) or anyone else came in on more than the big dogs at the club, as a Liverpool ethos seems to be not to pay anyone but those proven at the club the biggest bucks. Come in on good wages with bonuses too, then if you excel, get a pay rise.

- I’d guess Isak would be offered in the area of £240k, to double his money, purely as random speculation. Other strikers would be offered quite a lot less, maybe £150,000 or so. One issue with bringing in someone like Rodrygo as a versatile attacker is that he’s already on north of £200,000 a week. Benjamin Šeško already earns almost twice as much as Ekitiké, and closer to what Isak earns.

- Equally, Liverpool will give pay rises to players who merit them, especially the younger players. Someone like Alexis Mac Allister is already on good money, with three years left; a rise now could be used to ward off Real Madrid in 2028. But while I thought of that just as a joke, three years out is probably the time to negotiate, as two years out is when the power starts to shift to the player. As ever, anyone young who goes out on loan also signs a new deal. Any young player sold has a buyback, unless the club want to see the back of him. (I can’t see too many Bobby Duncans around.)

- Isak, Ekitiké, Mateta and Šeško – as the four most mentioned no.9 targets recently – differ, but are of a general type: 6’3” or more, mobile or fast for their size, able to score goals (again, never look at one season’s xG performance for a player’s goals), and able to hold it up; but also, make progressive carries and take-ons, so they can create for themselves as well as others.

- (Note: A player like Chris Wood can hold it up, but the huge difference with a tall striker like him is that he cannot progress with the ball at his feet, unlike the four above. He is a static front man, who can score goals, sometimes. Núñez can do it a bit more than Wood, as he’s faster, but is not great at take-ons, with poor close control. The four players listed can all dribble/progress the ball and manipulate it in tight spaces, albeit to differing degrees. Ekitiké looks like the best dribbler of the four, but Isak is just so good at everything.)

- Isak, Ekitiké, Mateta and Šeško all play in teams with only 50% possession, or less, albeit all of them play in pressing systems.

- That may mean they are the focus of more attacks, or that they don’t see the ball as much as they would in a better team (The Jack Grealish Conundrum: better team, far fewer touches). That said, they won’t have all the shots if they are in a team with Salah, Wirtz, Gakpo, Szoboszlai, et al.

- Ideally, to me, you’d have four or five players who can average three shots per 90, rather than a shot-monster who predictably takes many more, and where it’s blindingly obvious you’re trying to feed him all the time. (If the league is won early again in 2026, play Joe Gomez up front and let him be the only player allowed to shoot, including from goalkicks and kickoffs.)

- Isak is Premier League proven, and maybe the most graceful, but aged almost 26.

- Ekitiké, younger, and thrilling, is not yet consistent, or proven in England. His ceiling seems incredibly high, having excelled in his teens, then had a year of adversity at PSG as backup to the Gigantic Egos. Massive talent, but I can’t vouch for his attitude. But the Reds will only bid if they like his attitude.

- Mateta is older, and the least ‘exciting’ option, but massively underrated, and does a lot of things well – as well as being Premier League proven, which may not make much difference longer term, but increases the chances of quicker adaptation to the most arduous and brutal league in football. As I said the other day, he’s no static lump, but can drive at defences with the ball, and score delicate goals.

- Šeško is the youngest, tallest and based on the xG conversion over the two years for which he has data, the best finisher of the bunch (but he has a smaller sample size). Šeško and Mateta look the strongest in the air and the most physical of the quartet. But Šeško’s overall data looks a bit more odd than the rest, with little tackling, and a strangely low number of touches in the opposition box for a club as big as Leipzig. Ekitiké has far more in the same league with a team that has less possession of the ball by a few percentage points. (I can’t pretend to watch all these players every week, mind.)

- A tall striker would somewhat offset signing a smaller centre-back (which would be important for set-pieces in both boxes), albeit Marc Guéhi is pretty decent in the air for 6ft, and in keeping with the general trend I found, should get better in the air with age and experience.

- If he plays, Bradley is already taller and much better in the air than BT™ was. Kerkez’s decent height, and strong physique, suggests he can become very strong in the air in due course, as well as with more time spent in the Premier League.

- Before the transfer stuff started to heat up in the past two days, I was creating a study of over 40,000 aerial duels, which suggested that, on average, aerial ability rises massively with age; so while height is one very important variable, age (and potentially increased heft, albeit reliable weight measurements are hard to find and verify) is another. (Weight can change, but once in your early 20s, height does not. You can bulk up, beef up, or bloat up; or go leaner. Being too heavy makes it harder to jump, but heft allows you to win aerials by strikers bouncing off you. Isak is naturally very good in the air but as he’s slender, he may lose out to big bulky guys, but I find these types are great for near-post duty at corners, to force a higher delivery.)

- I’ve written for over a decade about the importance of height in a team (Brendan Rodgers brought in too many small players who just weren’t that good), but the more skill you have, and the better you keep the ball, the more you can negate risk of conceding corners, etc.; and score more goals of your own. But you still want your aerial giants, and of course, Ryan Gravenberch can drop into the back four (and Liverpool will have a taller keeper in 2026/27 if 6’7” Giorgi Mamardashvili usurps Alisson, or sooner if Alisson gets injured again).

- Virgil van Dijk is not only still the best aerial player in the league, he’s been so for nearly a decade, never once slipping below his high standards beyond the mere four games of 2020/21 before Jordan Pickford mistook him for a football or a steak pie. Aerial ability increases with age, as stated, but unlike pace, from my data, doesn’t generally decrease with older-age (albeit once you’re in your 80s, it’s harder, unless using the Zimmer for leverage).

- As a centre-back, Guéhi is almost the opposite of Konaté: smaller, faster over shorter distances and quicker to react, excellent at beating the press with dribbles, and his best defensive metrics are the ones where Virgil van Dijk’s numbers are lower, suggesting less duplication and more complementary play. (But if Konaté stays, then it’s not like he’s not a top defender.)

- A centre-back like Guéhi who is excellent on the ball would also make it harder for teams to press van Dijk, as now they’d have two defenders who can use the ball really well, albeit in different ways. Guéhi, a leader throughout his truly elite career in age-group football, is also younger and counts as homegrown. (Liverpool also have a lot of religious players, but I hope Guéhi, if he signed, would keep his beliefs private.)

- Guéhi, like so many others, may be more wary of moving in a World Cup season, if they have regular football guaranteed where they are. A lot of players will be more concerned about the summer of 2026, albeit if you can join a club like Liverpool, you can contest the biggest trophies and play in the Champions League, and you could always pick up a 4-week hammy, or worse, in June 2026.

- Aside from Guéhi, I haven’t heard too many rumblings about other centre-backs that seem to have any validity (since Dean Huijsen opted for Real Madrid). But as ever with Liverpool, you have to expect the unexpected. Just as no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, no one expected Fabinho. (Even Fabinho didn’t expect Fabinho.)

- Vaguely similar strikers off the table: João Pedro, Viktor Gyökeres, Nick Woltemade (Bayern is where he wants to go, if they pay up, as with Díaz). Ekitiké, if he goes to Newcastle.

‘Linked’ players I wouldn’t expect Liverpool to be interested in:

1. Nicolas Jackson. Overpriced. Liverpool unlikely to want to deal with Chelsea. Another ‘Núñez’ – hotheaded, erratic, very poor career-wise against the xG. (Plus, goes off to AFCON.)

2. Ollie Watkins is nearly 30, and already on pretty big wages. Might make sense as cheap backup striker, but that’s surely not what he wants to be, and he wouldn’t be cheap, either.

3. Yoane Wissa is nearly 29 (and at AFCON), albeit contract expires 2026. Might make sense as cheap backup striker, but depends on how much Brentford would want. Seems an unlikely target to me, but not totally out of the question.

4. Victor Osimhen is perhaps not the type of character Liverpool usually buy, with a lot of big clubs wary of him, it seems. (And will be at AFCON.) Very talented, but may have attitude problems, based on the general wariness around buying him.

5. Rodrygo, to me, would be too expensive for what he is, with the Real Madrid cachet, and already on wages over £200k a week; so would expect pay-rise and game-time. To me, he hasn’t yet risen to levels expected. Plus, always looks mediocre to me (but it’s a small sample size of me watching Madrid, and for years, Zlatan Ibrahimović was rubbish every time I saw him, until suddenly he wasn’t). Rodrygo seems a good dribbler, but plays on the right, where Liverpool don’t need first-XI players; unless he could be inverted left winger with right foot, but his finishing vs xG across his career in Spain is very poor. Seems to lack physicality for Premier League, and Liverpool need some height and heft as going with some smaller players already. All that said, he could possibly thrive in a better environment, minus the lazy dickheads.

6. Marcus Rashford. More chance of the Reds signing Marcus Mumford, who would probably try harder in games, and actually turn up for training (as long as he was asked not to sing, or play the fucking banjo).

The versatility of the players already at the club makes it hard to know who will play where, beyond Salah staying on the right. Just thinking about where Wirtz will feature has me confused, as he can do so much, and so will Slot try to be unpredictable in where he plays him, as he does with the midfield sometimes, or try to focus him on one role?

However, some slightly left-field signing may be made as a backup striker or backup left-sided attacker.

Indeed, I’d had a conversation with Michael Edwards in early 2020 about some data that (incidentally) highlighted Wolves’ Diogo Jota (god rest his soul), and I thought no more of it, as I assumed that Wolves would not sell, and would price him too high. (This impression comes from having spoken to some Wolves fans at the end of season title decider at Anfield in 2019, when they said they had incredible investment lined up, and were really going places. At the time, they were a bullish buying club, not a selling club, and only after did players start to leave.)

That could have been the one and only transfer story I legitimately broke, had I felt it would lead to anything; but I wouldn’t have shared it anyway. And it wasn’t a case of Liverpool being interested in him, other than a general data matchup.

If I ever have any actual inside information (which is rare) I tend not to publish it, as I don’t want to harm anything Liverpool FC does, other than to use the info to give me some perspective on what’s going on.

I’d hate to jeopardise a transfer Liverpool were making, in the way Rory Smith admitted on the excellent new Libero podcast to accidentally kiboshing the Reds’ move for the teenage James Maddison (who might have been a good player to get for a few million aged 19, but still annoys the crap out of me aged 28). In Smith’s case, at least it was only James Maddison.

So I have zero knowledge of Isak to Liverpool. Or Ekitiké.

However, I said a while back that if Richard Hughes and Eddie Howe are still close, it could be that Newcastle wanted to ‘do a Coutinho’ with Isak, to strengthen their team overall; whereas Liverpool are at the stage where only truly elite players will improve the XI.

And so it could work for all concerned, once the emotion is taken out of it. Which is what smart clubs do. (Fans, less so.)

I also said that Liverpool will make mega-buys if they think the player is complete, and as close to a sure-fire hit as you can get, and is the best way to solve a problem – as with Virgil van Dijk, who was also 26. My sense is also that slimmer players can also play on much longer, if they avoid injuries.

In theory, Isak would improve Liverpool’s XI, albeit so too would Ekitiké. (Isak would probably do so quicker.)

And Newcastle’s XI with Ekitiké, Anthony Elanga, a good new goalkeeper and a good new centre-back would be an improvement (on paper), if partially funded by the sale of Isak.

(However, what Newcastle can afford to do, if they can tap into their sovereign wealth fund, is only limited by PSR – in which clubs have found as may loopholes as there are in Blackburn, Lancashire, that would also fill the Albert Hall.)

Smart clubs like to buy before selling their most sellable assets, to replace them ahead of time, whilst knowing that they won’t be left unable to shift that most sellable asset if he truly is in demand.

(You don’t want to do this with your deadwood, as you can end up stuck with them; but sometimes that’s okay if they are decent squad players, where keeping them, if they are not toxic, is not a disaster, and their transfer value is fairly low.)

Remember, I totally defended the sale of Coutinho when fans were calling FSG insane and negligent; and I did so for the reasons, as I saw it, of why selling Ian Rush led to the arrival of four top players in 1987, and the most exciting Liverpool team anyone could remember seeing, just as selling Kevin Keegan in 1977 led to buying the even better Kenny Dalglish. (You can always buy badly with the windfall, but more research goes into transfers these days.)

I also defended waiting for Virgil van Dijk, when again, some fans said not buying a centre-back in the summer of 2017 was insane and negligent.

The difference with Isak is that he’s better than Coutinho, who was a talented but luxury player bolstered by the Jürgen Klopp framework and fitness and intensity; and Isak ticks more boxes for what you’d want with a player to succeed. Isak is a unicorn.

Isak has spoken very fondly of Liverpool, and Newcastle may be aware of losing him for nothing further down the line, as he has yet to sign a new deal or profess his desire to stay with the Magpies, even if his contract has years to run.

(Tapping-up is now standard practice. But the one thing I really don’t like is Real Madrid getting players to run their contracts down, as they are not paying market value – or anything at all – but essentially ‘stealing’ the player for nothing, which seems highly unfair. They can do that from the very top of the food chain, but it’s a shitty move to repeat, and Liverpool will need to find a way to thwart them. Obviously it seems like Díaz was tapped-up by Barça and Bayern, and I can live with that. That will still lead to a transfer fee.)

Isak is just the most complete striker around, and seems very mature; just as he did as a kid when we first scouted him on the old TTT site in 2016, and spotted a gem.

Ekitiké seems like the next-best option, with the bonus of being younger and thus maybe having a higher ceiling, and being cheaper and expecting lower wages too; but more of a risk in the short term, and more of an unknown quantity. Isak ticks more boxes, but that also includes the one that reads “£120m or more”, if not “NFS”.

But if it’s someone else, then as long as they are more reliable and suited to the system than Darwin Núñez (who is talented but erratic), then it’s good news. Otherwise, wide attackers and centre-backs, and potentially a backup striker, may still need sorting.

Let’s enjoy the summer, and make it a special season, while never forgetting our no.20, and the importance of so many things with football, beyond the excitement of signing a new player or two.

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