Chelsea’s hopes of signing Hugo Ekitike before the Club World Cup deadline now appear dead and buried.
Tuesday marks the final day of the provisional summer transfer window – ahead of it reopening on June 16 – with the Blues among several clubs scrambling to complete signings.
It’s not all doom and gloom for Enzo Maresca’s side, with the Premier League outfit having already completed the signing of Leicester City striker Liam Delap for £30m.
Chelsea’s deal for Hugo Ekitike collapses
Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes may very well be quietly fist-pumping away in his office after Sky Germany’s latest update.
Reporter Florian Plettenberg confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that Chelsea’s deal for Hugo Ekitike has officially ‘collapsed’ ahead of the deadline.
To be clear, the Stamford Bridge-based outfit is not out of the race for the Eintracht Frankfurt striker. However, what this latest setback does grant Liverpool is the advantage of time in the pursuit of Ekitike.
🚨🔵 A Club World Cup deal for Hugo #Ekitike to Chelsea FC has collapsed. There is still no full agreement and no official offer to Eintracht Frankfurt. #CFC
Chelsea and Ekitike remain in talks for the summer transfer window – but Liverpool are still in the race. #LFC
One to… pic.twitter.com/i6lOMS0UTt— Florian Plettenberg (@Plettigoal) June 10, 2025
Time, critically, to complete ongoing talks with Bayer Leverkusen and Bournemouth for Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez respectively.
Both deals, as fans are already aware, are progressing smoothly, and the expectation remains that we’ll have full confirmation in the near future.
Darwin Nunez looks to be a goner
We don’t need to remind anyone of how limited the contributions of Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez were in the prior campaign.
The likely reality remains that our Portuguese international is one bad pre-season away from being put on the “to-be-sold” list. Whilst our No.9’s questionable application and goal record in 2024/25 surely makes him a standout candidate to be sold this summer.
Gregg Evans at The Athletic has already confirmed that Liverpool are prepared to ‘listen to bids’, so it’s now a question of whether any club is prepared to meet our valuation.
Succeed here, and we could recoup a significant chunk of the €100m [£84.6m] asking price Frankfurt have set for Hugo Ekitike.
How does Ekitike compare to Nunez & Jota?
Chelsea may hold the advantage for Liverpool-linked Ekitike, but if we’re serious about holding on to our 2024/25 Premier League title, the Frenchman looks one to watch.
If we’re looking for a long-term replacement for Diogo Jota, Richard Hughes could do much worse than the Bundesliga gem.
The 22-year-old already has some pretty impressive goalscoring attributes. However, it should be noted that Ekitike’s most recent season falls short of Jota’s numbers in the 2023/24 campaign with the 28-year-old registering 15 goals in 1,711 minutes.
That’s a rate of one goal every 114.06 minutes, putting the Liverpool man in the 96.5th percentile for non-penalty goals (albeit with an inferior percentile of 78.2 for xG).
What makes Hugo Ekitike stand out by contrast, however, is his remarkable dribbling abilities.
| Players | Progressive carries (all competitions) per 90 | Successful dribbles per game | Successful take-ons (all competitions) per 90 |
| Hugo Ekitike | 3.04 | 1.6 (46%) | 1.9 |
| Darwin Nunez | 1.97 | 1.3 (44.1%) | 0.68 |
| Diogo Jota | 2.45 | 0.4 (35.5%) | 0.69 |
* Top-flight stats (Bundesliga & Premier League) in 2024/25, via Sofascore & FBref
The Bundesliga hitman is undoubtedly still quite a raw talent, but there’s some serious potential for Liverpool to unlock in the coming years. If we can find a way to improve Ekitike’s finishing volume (he underperformed his xG in the Bundesliga by 6.67 in 2024/25), we’ll have something of an all-rounder on our hands.
That is, of course, if we seriously intend to escalate our interest.
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If we are looking at goal scoring, what stops us from going after Victor Osimhen? He is a modern day goal scoring warlord. With the quality of players in the squad, adding Osimhen to the squad will mean winning games before the start.
Not an LFC player…
LFC should stop this campfire dance. Does the recruitment team have issues with Victor Osimhen? He is the goal pulse that LFC need right now.