{"id":401577,"date":"2026-02-01T01:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T01:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/401577\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T01:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T01:54:07","slug":"liverpool-4-1-newcastle-hugo-ekitike-draws-fernando-torres-comparison-as-he-haunts-former-admirers-newcastle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/401577\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool 4-1 Newcastle: Hugo Ekitike draws Fernando Torres comparison as he haunts former admirers Newcastle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anfield was silenced as Anthony Gordon looked to the Kop and defiantly pointed to his ear.<\/p>\n

The Newcastle United<\/a> forward had just fired his side in front against Liverpool<\/a> with a well-taken 36th-minute finish.<\/p>\n

There was plenty of time left.<\/p>\n

But were Liverpool<\/a> about to finally lose a top-flight fixture against the visitors on their own turf for the first time since 1994?<\/p>\n

Was the champions’ winless run in the Premier League about to extend to six games?<\/p>\n

Not if Hugo Ekitike had anything to do with it.<\/p>\n

The France forward dragged his side level with a poacher’s finish – then fired them in front with a quick-fire second before half-time, much to the delight of manager Arne Slot.<\/p>\n

“The fans love him,” Slot said after his side’s 4-1 win. “From the start, everyone could see how special he is, how fast he is.”<\/p>\n

These were the sort of finishes Newcastle<\/a>‘s scouting team had seen plenty of, having tried to sign Ekitike, 23, on three separate occasions – including last summer.<\/p>\n

Even head coach Eddie Howe could not help but hold his hands up.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you have to acknowledge the player against you while also acknowledging we could have defended better,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Ekitike is an outstanding player and you saw that today. He’s got a little bit of everything and that’s his biggest strength. He’s tall, quick and he can finish.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anfield was silenced as Anthony Gordon looked to the Kop and defiantly pointed to his ear. The Newcastle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-401577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401577","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=401577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}