‘I was wrong’ – Gary Neville admits Liverpool hero has made a mockery of his pre-season claim
Gary Neville has admitted that one of Liverpool’s summer signings has made a mockery of a pre-season prediction from the Sky Sports pundit.
Hugo Ekitike was among several new additions to Arne Slot’s squad prior to the 2025/26 season, joining from Eintracht Frankfurt for an initial £69m (The Independent), and the French striker has enjoyed a terrific first campaign in English football.
The Frenchman has already struck 15 goals for the Reds, with 10 of that tally coming in the Premier League, in addition to supplying four assists (Transfermarkt), and former Everton winger Pat Nevin has rightly hailed him as a ‘revelation‘.
Neville holds his hands up about Ekitike prediction
On the latest episode of Stick to Football, Neville revisited pre-season predictions from the regular panelists as to whether a series of high-profile forward signings in the Premier League last summer would prove to be a ‘hit, miss or maybe’ at their new clubs.
On Ekitike, the ex-Manchester United defender reflected: “At the start of the season, you said he’d be a hit, Ian [Wright]. I said eventually but not straight away, and I was wrong. He’s been a hit straight away.”
Ekitike has stepped up commendably amid Isak’s troubles
When Liverpool spent a club-record £125m to sign Alexander Isak last summer, there was a school of thought among some pundits that Ekitike would be consigned to the role of impact substitute unless Slot adjusted his formation to find a way to regularly start both of them up top.
That has happened on occasion, and journalist Ian Doyle is convinced that the two of them can work in tandem, although the autumnal fitness issues and pre-Christmas leg injury to the Swedish marksman has minimised opportunities for both of them to play together.
That stop-start introduction to life at Anfield for our number 9 has increased the burden on the Frenchman to not only stay fit himself but also to provide a regular supply of goals, and he’s emphatically succeeded on both counts.
We often hear of newcomers to the Premier League needing a ‘settling-in period’ to adjust to the rigours of the English top flight, but that most certainly hasn’t been an issue for Ekitike, whose goal tally should be even higher considering the couple of misses he’s had against Manchester City and Sunderland this week.
The Liverpool striker needs to maintain the standards he’s shown so far on Merseyside and not let the last six months turn into a mere false dawn, but at 23, he has ample time to improve even further and prove to be a continued hit for the Reds.
You can watch Slot’s full post-Sunderland press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:
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