Jamie Carragher sparked fresh debate after Hugo Ekitik\u00e9’s two goals in Liverpool’s 4\u20131 victory over Newcastle United, arguing the French forward may already be a more complete player than Fernando Torres. Carragher made the comparison on Sky Sports immediately after the match, saying: “I think Ekitik\u00e9 is a better player than Torres.” He tempered the claim with context on goalscoring support, adding: “He may not get as many goals, but Torres was made by [Steven] Gerrard at Liverpool. Ekitik\u00e9 wont rely on [Florian] Wirtz as much, but, if the combination keeps going, he could get the goals Torres got.”<\/p>\n
Ekitik\u00e9’s weekend double took his totals to 15 goals in 32 outings for the Reds in all competitions. He has made 21 Premier League appearances for Liverpool, scoring 10 times and providing two assists in those league games. By comparison, Torres had 11 goals and three assists in his first 21 league appearances for the club.<\/p>\n
The pair’s early Champions League records also differ. Torres scored five goals in his first eight Champions League appearances, while Ekitik\u00e9 has two. Torres’s continental strikes came against Porto, Marseille, Inter and Arsenal; Ekitik\u00e9’s European goals came against Eintracht Frankfurt and Qaraba\u011f.<\/p>\n
Ekitik\u00e9 has been one of the few bright sparks in a generally gloomy season for the reigning champions. After the Newcastle game he was cautious about comparisons, saying: “I mean, back in the day, I couldn\u2019t watch the Premier League, to be honest. My mum didn\u2019t pay, so I couldn\u2019t see. But yeah, obviously I know about him, I watched some clips on YouTube.<\/p>\n
“I would never put myself on the same level as him. I mean, I love him, he was a really good player and if I can reach his level and be even better, it would be great.”<\/p>\n
Carragher also pointed to \u00a3116 million ($158.8 million) summer recruit Florian Wirtz as a source of renewed hope. Wirtz both scored and assisted against Newcastle, taking his personal tally to 12 goal contributions for the term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carragher compared Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 to Fernando Torres after Ekitik\u00e9’s two goals in Liverpool’s 4-1 win..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,969,1125],"tags":[1081,1162,1047],"class_list":["post-6487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","category-strikers","tag-adaptation","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487","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=6487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}