Liverpool’s recruitment model is the envy of many teams in world football.
Indeed, the Reds are the Premier League champions for a reason, they’ve built a brilliant squad, and they’ve done so by sniffing out some real gems.
Mohamed Salah has proven many people wrong since signing for Liverpool, while even Virgil van Dijk had his doubters when he arrived at Anfield.
Andy Robertson is one of the best signings in Premier League history as well.
Others such as Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Alexis Mac Allister were all very clever signings too.
Liverpool’s recruitment team are geniuses, and according to Ben Jacobs, speaking on The Done Deal Show, there are two strikers who have really stood out in terms of their underlying data.
Liverpool’s data team impressed by Hugo Ekitike and Joao Pedro
According to Jacobs, Hugo Ekitike and Joao Pedro have really stood out to the Reds’ data team when they’ve run the numbers.
Jamie Carragher thinks Ekitike could join Liverpool, while Pedro has been linked to Liverpool for a while now.
“Liverpool and Arsenal both have other targets, we know that Liverpool have Hugo Ekitike and Joao Pedro, to name but two, on their list, they’ve both scored very highly when they have run the data on each of them,” Jacobs said.
Hugo Ekitike compared to Joao Pedro
Ekitike and Pedro have both scored well in terms of their data, and while Liverpool will be using advanced analytics to analyse both of these players, their regular stat sheet tells an interesting story.
| Joao Pedro | Hugo Ekitike | |
| 27 | Games | 31 |
| 10 | Goals | 15 |
| 6 | Assists | 7 |
| 1.7 | Shots per game | 3.5 |
| 1.1 | Key passes per game | 1.4 |
Ekitike has been outperforming Pedro in a number of key metrics this season, but, of course, there are multiple ways to analyse this data.
Pedro has scored fewer goals than Ekitike this season, but, he has been playing in the Premier League, which gives the £30m man valuable and relevant experience should he join Liverpool.
Meanwhile, Ekitike is coming from the Bundesliga, and a number of strikers over the years to come from Germany to England have struggled such as Niclas Fullkrug and Lukas Podolski.
Darwin Nunez is set to leave Liverpool this summer, and it’s worth keeping an eye on Pedro and Ekitike as potential replacements for the Uruguayan.
