Liverpool Urged to Sign ‘Lightning' Forward in £85m Deal
Liverpool, the newly crowned Premier League champions under Arne Slot, are moving decisively in the transfer market. On the Anfield Index Daily Red podcast, Dave Hendrick broke down the Reds' interest in Hugo Ekitike, offering a candid assessment of the young striker's potential and the broader implications for the team.
Backing Edwards and the Recruitment Team
Hendrick was clear from the start: 'If Michael Edwards has decided that Ekitike is worth going for, then you have to back it.' He reminded listeners that Liverpool have a history of success with so-called 'number two options,' citing Gini Wijnaldum, Sadio Mané and Mo Salah as prime examples. Hendrick noted, 'Mo, he didn't want Mo originally, he wanted Julian Brandt. Sadio, he wanted Mario Götze. He had to be convinced on those players by the recruitment staff.'
This trust in the backroom team is key, especially as Liverpool move for a player who Hendrick admits has weaknesses: 'His finishing is inconsistent to be kind, and he does struggle against physicality.' Yet, Hendrick believes those issues will improve, adding, 'He's young, he's going to bulk up. Get him in the door, get him on the steaks, get him in the gym with Mo.'
Ekitike's Fit and the Role of Rodrygo
Hendrick sees Ekitike stepping into a team filled with firepower: 'He's walking into a team that's going to have Mo Salah on the right, Florian Wirtz in the team, and potentially Rodrygo on the left.' He emphasised the importance of this environment, calling it 'potentially the best possible situation,' and praised Rodrygo's versatility and spark: 'Rodrygo is… lightning… an alternative number nine… he is a spark plug.'
Photo: IMAGO
There's excitement about how these pieces fit together. Hendrick declared, 'If we get him in, get him playing regularly on the left, he will be outrageous.' He was also clear on expectations, warning against pressure: 'We cannot put that level of pressure on him because he's a young lad who'll be coming to a new country with a lot of expectation and a big price tag already weighing over him.'
Learning from the Past and Breaking the Voodoo
A recurring theme was Hendrick's concern over the so-called Eintracht Frankfurt 'voodoo,' referencing past strikers who failed after leaving the German club: 'Luka Jović… Sébastien Haller… Randal Kolo Muani… players doing really really well with Eintracht and then not doing well elsewhere.' Still, Hendrick acknowledged Ekitike might break the streak, noting his resilience: 'Even when he was at PSG and it was going disastrously bad… there wasn't a peep out of him.'
Photo: IMAGO
Hendrick praised Ekitike's work ethic and mindset, highlighting that the striker 'works like a demon on improving his game' and has 'a great personality' with no history of causing issues.
Patience and High Expectations
Hendrick called for patience: 'It's going to take patience, but like I say, he is walking in to potentially the best possible situation with Salah. Salah and Wirtz alone make it an incredible situation.' Reflecting on the highs and lows of player adaptation, he pointed out, 'Isak's first year wasn't all plain sailing… Darwin scored more than him in the first year.'
Ultimately, Hendrick offered a bold assessment: 'I don't think there's a world in which he's just decent for us. I think he's either a disappointment or he's incredible.' Given Michael Edwards' track record, Hendrick is optimistic: 'Michael Edwards doesn't miss. He just doesn't miss.'
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This is an updated version of an article first published in June 2025. After the quiet of a year ago, this summer has been anything but for Liverpool. Florian Wirtz's club-record arrival last month was sandwiched by the signings of Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez, with the trio costing around £170million in transfer fees alone. The signing of Hugo Ekitike from Eintracht Frankfurt for about £79million ($107m) has pumped that figure even higher. Advertisement Include the £25m spent on Giorgi Mamardashvili (a deal agreed last year but one where the goalkeeper only joined from Valencia this summer) and add on estimated agent fees and transfer levies and you are left with a startling figure. Liverpool have spent in the region of £300m, and there is still over a month of the transfer window to run. 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Liverpool lost £57.1million pre-tax in 2023-24, the worst financial result in the club's history, so are costs are swallowing their income whole? Not really. That big loss a year ago was out of the ordinary for a club who, across Fenway Sports Group (FSG's) near-15 years at the helm, have broken even. They' have most likely done better than that: as detailed in The Athletic's BookKeeper series, published in March, we expect Liverpool to have returned to profitability in 2024-25, and healthy profitability too. Even if the wage bill crept up to the £400m mark — not a guarantee by any stretch, but possible once league-winning bonuses were handed out — we project Liverpool could still have booked a £30m profit. Advertisement The club are big wage-payers, as evidenced by their 2023-24 bill only trailing Manchester City domestically. The Athletic understands Wirtz will earn around £200,000 per week at Anfield, before any bonuses which may accrue to him. From Liverpool's perspective, inclusive of employer-related costs on top of his basic salary, Wirtz will cost them at least £12m a year. Ekitike will plainly be paid well too. During Newcastle's pursuit of him, his salary demands were expected to be between £200,000 and £220,000 per week. Whether that held during negotiations with Liverpool is unknown, but taking the midpoint as his basic salary and applying employer-related costs on top sees a £12.6m cost to Liverpool to employ him each year. Across Wirtz and Ekitike, the club have added a minimum of around £25m to the annual wage bill. Liverpool have some world-class players and pay them accordingly, but will benefit from the departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who cost them £12m a year in employment-related costs (again before bonuses). Any further high-profile sales will help too and, even as the 2025-26 wage bill should easily go past £400m, it will be manageable in the context of the club's earnings. Liverpool's wages to revenue has hovered between 62 per cent and 65 per cent, a healthy ratio, in each of past four seasons. One of the reasons the signings of Van Dijk and goalkeeper Alisson are often pointed to as examples of Liverpool not skimping on fees is they were pretty much outliers; they did spend big on the pair, but their transfer spending has generally trailed domestic rivals. At the end of 2023-24 the cost of assembling Liverpool's squad, across transfer and agent fees, was £749.4m, the seventh most expensive squad in the world but well behind Chelsea (£1.4bn), Manchester City (£1.1bn), Manchester United (£943.9m) and Arsenal (£882.4m). Correspondingly, annual amortisation costs hitting the club's books were well below domestic peers; Liverpool's amortisation bill of £114.5m last year was over £20m behind Spurs and £75m less than Chelsea. After a quiet summer in 2024, amortisation won't have ticked up much, if at all. Wirtz's £100m fee, plus assumed agent fees on top of around 10 per cent, alongside a four per cent transfer levy payable to the Premier League by clubs on all new signings, will add £21.4m to Liverpool's 2025-26 amortisation bill, with a further £22.7m per season following thereafter until 2029-30 (a small sliver, £1.9m, will fall into 2030-31 as a result of the club's May 31 accounting date). Advertisement The deal for Ekitike, meanwhile, adds a further £13.4m to 2025-26, £15.7m a season to the end of 2029-30 and around £2.3m into 2030-31 (despite signing a six-year deal, Premier League and UEFA rules mean his fee can only be spread over five years for PSR purposes). Alongside the recent signings of Frimpong and Kerkez, Liverpool have added around £54m a season onto their amortisation costs, or almost half what their amortisation bill was in 2023-24. Even so, that would still only push them a smidge ahead of Manchester City's bill that year, who have spent plenty themselves recently. Liverpool will have narrowed the gap in amortisation costs to the rest of the 'big six', and have possibly surpassed Spurs. This summer's spending on transfers has brought their amortisation expenditure closer to those at the top, but it is likely they will still trail four domestic rivals. None of which is to say this looks likely to become the norm at Anfield. FSG appear to have decided the best approach to capitalise on last year's success is to lay down a significant marker, and catch up on transfer spending which has dropped relative to peers. Liverpool's net transfer spend dipped to zero in 2019-20, then did so again last season. Across the past five seasons, seven English clubs spent more on players. It is a point worth remembering when contextualising this summer's activity. No. We recently explained how Liverpool could have lost £75m last season without breaking any Premier League rules. Across wages and transfer fee amortisation, signing Wirtz and Ekitike will add an extra £63m or so in annual costs. Add in estimates for Frimpong and Kerkez, and the four might have added £90m to £100m to the annual expenditure — but it comes at a time of booming income, on the back of a profitable season in 2024-25, and when outgoings look more likely. Those sales probably are not needed to satisfy Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) in the immediate term — the profitability of 2024-25 and growing revenues will ensure no issues there — but they will help balance the squad and the books. Liverpool have signed up to several years of costs this summer, so, as with any business, there is a need to offset those where possible. Advertisement FSG has long sought to run Liverpool sustainably and, while they can and have splurged this summer without fear of bankruptcy or rule-breaking, and can lose a chunk of money in 2025-26 if they wish to, that doesn't mean they will do it for the sake of it. A big money departure, likely Nunez, would be no surprise. Cash worries are different from PSR ones, but Liverpool have little concern there either. Access to funds is no problem. Even if FSG was reluctant to loan money in (something they have generally preferred to do for infrastructure spend rather than operational costs), the ownership refinanced a revolving credit facility in September last year, lifting its limit from £200m to £350m. At the end of May 2024, it had only drawn down £116m of the original £200m, so there is plenty to be dipped into if the need arises. Liverpool may not need to increase borrowings anyway. Operating cash flow was positive at £83.7m in 2023-24 even without Champions League revenue, while cash spent on infrastructure has reduced following the completion of the revamped Anfield Road End. The cash position at the end of last season is likely to have been strong. It is no coincidence that the end of those works has been followed by this summer's spending. Liverpool have spent heavily on infrastructure: over the last decade, only Tottenham and Everton, both of whom built new stadia in that time, have paid out more in capital spending. Now that spending has been reduced, Liverpool have invested heavily in the playing squad, enjoying the cash benefits of, for example, higher gate receipts from a bigger ground. As well, their relatively low spending on transfers — and keenness to pay more of deals up front if they can — means Liverpool owe far less than peers in outstanding fee instalments. At the end of May 2024, they owed a net £69.9m, an amount which is expected to have dropped even lower in the past year. The previous figure was lower than seven other Premier League clubs at the time and nowhere near the £308.9m Manchester United owed at the end of March 2025. There is also the point, linked, of those potential sales. How Liverpool have structured payments on this summer's new signings is unknown, but any imminent big-money sales would clearly help to offset cash going the other way. This summer represents a significant undertaking for Liverpool. Across Wirtz and Ekitike alone, transfer fees, assumed agent fees, transfer levies and respective five and six-year contracts put the total cost to the club of signing and employing the pair at an estimated £326.7m. That is without including add-ons and bonuses, or the costs of bringing in Frimpong and Kerkez — and Mamardashvili — alongside them. Advertisement These are huge sums, but then Liverpool are a wealthy club. It would be a surprise if some sales don't now follow, but they will have been planned for as part of this summer's activity. FSG's ownership has not been to every fan's taste, but it is precisely because of its past frugality that Liverpool have been able to make this a summer of statement.
