Has Liverpool star ‘settled’ or has he just scored a few goals? Ian Wright has his say
Ian Wright has suggested one Liverpool new boy is having it easier than others as people feel he has “settled” due to having scored a few goals.
The Reds splashed around £450million on new signings in the summer. The three largest fees were spent on Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike, which is unsurprising given they are the men who will bring the most goal threat.
So far, Ekitike is having the best time of it out of any of those, and any Liverpool new boy at all, given he has scored six goals and assisted one more.
It is suggested he has settled quicker than any of his fellow Reds new boys, but speaking on Stick to Football, Wright suggests that’s largely because as a striker, it can be felt the job is done if they score, regardless of performance.
He said: “It’s different for a striker. People don’t understand, with a striker, you can be up there, you can be falling off your bad touch, ball comes across, bam, you tap it in, everyone says, oh, ‘he’s settled.’ Because you’ve scored the goal.
“With a midfielder, it’s harder. For the defender, it’s harder. It’s harder for everyone else apart from a striker. A striker will score, it will go in, everyone will think he’s settled.”
Indeed, Ekitike got fans on side immediately with three goals in his first three games – one in the Community Shield and one in each of the next two Premier League games.
In those two league games, he had three shots on target combined, before not having a single shot in 78 minutes against Arsenal.
While there have since been eight games in which Ekitike has had more than one shot, he has only actually put more than one on target on one of those occasions – when he scored against former side Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League.
That suggests he might not have overly settled yet, given he’s not having a huge impact, though he is still having a valuable contributions in places.
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For Wirtz, things have been harder, as his role has changed from Bayer Leverkusen to Liverpool, having to drop deeper and access other areas of the pitch than what he is used to in order to get involved.
He has three assists to his name in 15 games and does not have the luxury of just finding himself in a position to score and doing so – having to work much harder.
That said, he is making 1.7 key passes per game in the Premier League and as many as four in the Champions League, so those around him are not helping him to have the impact he might have done.
READ MORE: Newcastle coaches ‘starting to worry’ that Liverpool transfer target ‘is not good enough’
