Former Liverpool striker stunned by Hugo Ekitike’s instant impact

It’s not often a former Liverpool striker admits he was wrong, but Djibril Cisse has done just that after watching Hugo Ekitike’s electric start to life at Anfield.

Cisse praises Ekitike’s early impact for Liverpool

The Frenchman joined us from Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer for an initial £69 million, and few could have predicted such an immediate return.

Five goals in his first 10 appearances have already made the 23-year-old one of the standouts of Arne Slot’s reign this season, earning him a maiden senior call-up to the France national team.

Speaking to Get French Football News, Cisse said: “He brings goals. He can score goals. He showed it in Germany, and he’s shown it at Liverpool when he arrived.

“I was a little scared that he wasn’t going to play much, but I was wrong. He’s playing, he’s doing good, he’s scoring goals. He’s bringing different options to Mo Salah and Alexander Isak.”

Cisse, who famously helped us lift the Champions League in Istanbul in 2005, admitted he “wasn’t expecting him to be that good that quick,” but believes our new No.22 is already showing the mentality and movement that made him so highly rated in Germany.

Ekitike’s competition and the strength of Liverpool’s front line

The French forward’s arrival followed the British-record signing of Alexander Isak, giving us arguably the deepest attacking line in the Premier League.

Cisse believes this competition can only be a positive. “If Ekitike stays at this level and continues to score goals when he has the chance to play, then it’s going to be difficult for the manager to choose,” he said.

“But that’s football, that’s the beauty of football. The season is long. You need all your strikers at the top.”

With the Frenchman thriving, it also reinforces what BBC journalist Michael Emons previously wrote – that Liverpool’s £194 million strikeforce of Isak and Ekitike is still finding balance but bursting with potential.

As for Cisse, his verdict will delight us all: a fellow Frenchman, once a Red himself, now seeing a new generation carry that same fearless energy in front of goal.

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