Eintracht Frankfurt forward Hugo Ekitike, who has been linked with Liverpool, could move on from the Bundesliga side this summer, according to the club’s sporting director.
The 22-year-old Frenchman scored 15 Bundesliga goals and notched eight assists for Frankfurt this season, helping it to qualify for the Champions League.
Ekitike only completed a permanent move to Frankfurt last year but he is already being linked with a move to a bigger club, with Chelsea, Liverpool, and Arsenal all said to be monitoring him.
Frankfurt sporting director Markus Krosche admitted that the club will sell Ekitike for the right price. “If a player develops faster than us, then we let him go — if his demands are met by us,” he told SPORT1. “We depend on generating transfer revenue.”
Liverpool is expected to be in the market for a new striker during the summer window as the club looks for a dependable source of goals through the middle of its attack
The Reds secured Premier League glory with four games to spare, and with 85 goals from 37 games this season, they are the league’s top scorers by some distance.
However, only 11 of those goals have been scored by either Diogo Jota or Darwin Nunez, who are the two out-and-out strikers in Liverpool’s squad.
(Image: Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Natural wide players Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo and Luis Diaz have contributed 51 of Liverpool’s league goals this term, prompting the club to consider signing a new striker in order to ease the goal-scoring burden on that trio next term.
The anticipated sale of Nunez will help to raise funds for a new striker, with Liverpool expecting there to be a strong market for the Uruguayan after rejecting approaches from clubs in Saudi Arabia during the winter window.
One of the offers, from Al-Hilal, was reported to have been worth $93 million, and if the club can command a similar fee this summer, it could go some way to ensuring the Reds can replace Nunez with a top-class striker.
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Another option could be for Nunez to join Atletico Madrid; Nunez is reportedly house-hunting in the Spanish capital ahead of a possible summer move to the Riyadh Air Metropolitano.
Reports in Spain say Nunez’s preference is to link up with fellow South American Diego Simeone in the Spanish capital. Atletico’s preference would be to sign Nunez on an initial loan deal with a mandatory purchase option.
