{"id":20514,"date":"2025-07-24T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T15:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/20514\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T15:00:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T15:00:16","slug":"hugo-ekitike-meets-new-liverpool-teammates-and-arne-slot-for-first-time-liverpool-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/20514\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo Ekitike meets new Liverpool teammates and Arne Slot for first time – Liverpool FC"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 29-man squad were put through their paces in front of 25,000-plus Liverpool fans in Hong Kong, though Hugo Ekitike<\/a>\u2018s arrival after the session finished took the headlines.<\/p>\n

Liverpool took their pre-season preparations to a humid Hong Kong earlier this week, with players fulfilling commercial duties alongside training for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n

New signing Ekitike did not partake in the open session but was at the stadium after arriving on Thursday following his official unveiling on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

At the end of the hour-and-a-half session, he made his way onto the pitch to greet Arne Slot<\/a>, the coaches and his new teammates for the first time \u2013 much to the delight of the crowd.<\/p>\n

The Frenchman was warmly welcomed, with Virgil van Dijk<\/a> and countryman Ibrahima Konate<\/a> quick to have a word as the team made their way around the pitch to applaud the thousands of fans who watched on.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

The Reds\u2019 travelling party now includes 30 players, though Alexis Mac Allister<\/a> was still absent<\/a> from full team training as he continues to build up his fitness \u2013 he was inside the stadium but did not take part. <\/p>\n

The Argentine is, therefore, very unlikely to feature against AC Milan<\/a> on Saturday, though fans will expect to get their first sighting of Florian Wirtz<\/a> at the Kai Tak Stadium.<\/p>\n

The German drew plenty of audible reactions from the 25,000-plus crowd as the squad first played six-on-seven games before switching to 11 vs. 12, where the latter has two goalkeepers.<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

Darwin Nunez<\/a> bundled into Alisson<\/a> on one occasion, leaving the Brazilian a little sore, but he finished the session with little concern.<\/p>\n

Although the roof was closed and the air conditioning on, only the goalkeepers braved wearing long shirts and pants \u2013 even Van Dijk was in a singlet, and we know how rare that is!<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

It was a competitive session from the 29 players involved, who will have enjoyed the reprieve of the air conditioning after training outdoors in the hot and humid Hong Kong climate over the last few days.<\/p>\n

Liverpool will face AC Milan<\/a> on Saturday, 12.30pm (BST), before making their second and final stop in Japan.<\/p>\n

Liverpool squad in training on Thursday<\/p>\n

\"HONG<\/p>\n

Goalkeepers: Alisson<\/a>, Mamardashvili, Woodman, Pecsi, Misciur<\/p>\n

Defenders: Van Dijk, Konate, Gomez, Bradley, Frimpong, Kerkez, Robertson, Tsimikas, Stephenson<\/p>\n

Midfielders: Gravenberch, Szoboszlai, Jones, Endo, Nyoni, Morton, Elliott<\/p>\n

Forwards: Salah, Wirtz, Gakpo, Diaz, Nunez, Doak, Ngumoha<\/p>\n

* You can follow all Liverpool\u2019s pre-season friendlies live with All Red Video<\/a>, the new video offering from the club that replaces LFCTV. Purchase All Red Video here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 29-man squad were put through their paces in front of 25,000-plus Liverpool fans in Hong Kong, though…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,134,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-20514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}