It\u2019s taken a little over a week for Liverpool to go from opening talks with Hugo Ekitike to completing his signing from Eintracht Frankfurt, but Newcastle, Chelsea and Al Hilal have all been involved in a transfer story akin to an iceberg, with far more intrigue below the surface.<\/p>\n
The Reds confirmed the Frenchman\u2019s signing for \u00a369m plus \u00a310m in add-ons on Wednesday, which means they\u2019re now the biggest summer spenders of the summer<\/a> and have the top two most-expensive signings<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was Newcastle who forced Liverpool into moving for Ekitike by making an \u20ac80m [\u00a369m] offer for him on July 15, which arrived after Al Hilal \u2018issued a blank cheque\u2019 for the 23-year-old, according to Bild<\/a>.<\/p>\n The issue in both cases was the failure to first reach an agreement with Ekitike, which \u2013 somewhat strangely \u2013 was Eintracht Frankfurt\u2019s preference for his transfer.<\/p>\n Ekitike didn\u2019t want to join Al Hilal or Newcastle and the report claims the Bundesliga side were actually \u2018irritated\u2019 that the Magpies came to them before agreeing personal terms with the striker. Weird.<\/p>\n Anyway, Eintracht rejected the Newcastle bid on the evening of July 15 after it arrived in the morning, and it was at that point that Liverpool \u2018reported back\u2019 following initial contact in February, when Arsenal also \u2018registered interest\u2019.<\/p>\n It\u2019s claimed Liverpool had \u2018intensified interest\u2019 in Newcastle star Alexander Isak \u2018in the days before\u2019 but the Reds\u00a0\u2018made it clear they would get into the poker for Ekitike if they could not get Isak immediately\u2019.<\/p>\n On July 16 Liverpool \u2018entered concrete negotiations\u2019 with Ekitike and his representatives while also \u2018contacting Newcastle for the first time about Isak\u2019.<\/p>\n It was not one or the other at that stage \u2013 \u2018suddenly they want both\u2019, according to Bild.<\/p>\n Newcastle \u2018dropped out of the poker\u2019 for Ekitike the next day as the striker informed Eintracht that \u2018he only wants to go to Liverpool\u2019, while the Magpies also made it \u2018clear to Liverpool that Isak is unsaleable\u2019.<\/p>\n Liverpool\u2019s opening bid of \u20ac80m [\u00a369m] \u2013 the same as Newcastle\u2019s \u2013 was rejected by the German side on July 18, but there were \u2018very professional negotiations\u2019 between sporting directors Marjus Krosche and Richard Hughes.<\/p>\n MORE ON LIVERPOOL FROM F365\u2026 By this point personal terms between Ekitike and Liverpool had been fully agreed, with the striker agreeing to a six-year contract on \u20ac15m per year, five times what he was on at Eintracht.<\/p>\n And\u00a0by the evening of July 19 \u2013 after Ekitike stayed on the bench to watch a 3-2 victory over FSV Frankfurt \u2013 the clubs had also agreed terms.<\/p>\n But he could so easily have moved to Chelsea instead.<\/p>\n It\u2019s claimed the Blues were \u2018the first club to get serious\u2019 over his potential transfer, holding \u2018concrete talks with the player side\u2019 on May 21, four days before the end of the Premier League season.<\/p>\n And the report even goes as far as to suggest the \u2018back problems\u2019 cited as the reason for Ekitike pulling out of the France Under-21 European Championships squad weren\u2019t all that serious amid the interest from Chelsea.<\/p>\n \u2018Only two days later he posted a video on Instagram showing him training with a personal coach\u2019, the report claims, adding that Chelsea signing Joao Pedro from Brighton was \u2018much to Ekitike\u2019s disappointment\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s taken a little over a week for Liverpool to go from opening talks with Hugo Ekitike to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,562,700,15867,1417,8668,44,561,82],"class_list":["post-19351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chelsea","tag-front-page","tag-hugo-ekitike","tag-liverpool","tag-newcastle-united","tag-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Liverpool pick Real Madrid superstar as replacement for Luis Diaz in \u2018very expensive\u2019 move<\/a>
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Liverpool eye \u2018more affordable plan B\u2019 after Tottenham enter race to sign Guehi from Palace<\/a>
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Konate \u2018priority\u2019 revealed as Liverpool and Real Madrid fight over the Frenchman\u2019s future<\/a><\/p>\n