Hugo Ekitike made a notable first appearance at Anfield on Monday, starting against Athletic Club in a 3\u20132 win. During the second match of a friendly doubleheader, the French striker contributed an assist for the opening goal, finding Mohamed Salah who successfully scored. Liverpool secured victories in both games, netting seven goals in total.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the club\u2019s mindset, Ekitike emphasized the competitive spirit of the squad: \u201cWe have a group of competitors, we want to win everything. We\u2019re going to give 100 per cent I\u2019m sure. I\u2019m sure about this. And me also, I\u2019m going to give 100 per cent to win because I\u2019m here to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
The summer transfer window saw Ekitike join Liverpool from a group of new signings including Giorgi Mamardashvili, Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong, and Milos Kerkez, following manager Arne Slot\u2019s successful inaugural season that culminated in a league title.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s transfer activity has continued with ongoing interest in Newcastle United\u2019s striker Alexander Isak. The club has submitted a formal bid of approximately \u00a3120 million ($158.6 million), which Newcastle quickly dismissed. Should this transfer advance, it could impact Ekitike\u2019s playing time given the attacking options now available.<\/p>\n
Ekitike looks ahead to potentially starting in Liverpool\u2019s season opener against Crystal Palace in the FA Community Shield match on Sunday, August 10, as the team prepares to defend their Premier League crown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hugo Ekitike shines on Anfield debut as Liverpool aims to defend Premier League title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1220,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[59,231,180],"class_list":["post-1221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-featured","tag-hugo-ekitike","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1222,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221\/revisions\/1222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}