Chelsea’s hopes of signing Hugo Ekitike earlier than the Membership World Cup deadline now seem useless and buried.
Tuesday marks the ultimate day of the provisional summer season switch window – forward of it reopening on June 16 – with the Blues amongst a number of golf equipment scrambling to finish signings.
It’s not all doom and gloom for Enzo Maresca’s facet, with the Premier League outfit having already accomplished the signing of Leicester Metropolis striker Liam Delap for £30m.
Chelsea’s deal for Hugo Ekitike collapses
(Photograph by Shaun Botterill/Getty Photographs)
Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes could very properly be quietly fist-pumping away in his workplace after Sky Germany’s newest replace.
Reporter Florian Plettenberg confirmed on X (previously Twitter) that Chelsea’s deal for Hugo Ekitike has formally ‘collapsed’ forward of the deadline.
To be clear, the Stamford Bridge-based outfit shouldn’t be out of the race for the Eintracht Frankfurt striker. Nevertheless, what this newest setback does grant Liverpool is the benefit of time within the pursuit of Ekitike.
🚨🔵 A Membership World Cup deal for Hugo #Communicated to Chelsea FC has collapsed. There’s nonetheless no full settlement and no official supply to Eintracht Frankfurt. #CFC
Chelsea and Ekitike stay in talks for the summer season switch window – however Liverpool are nonetheless within the race. #LFC
One to… pic.twitter.com/i6lOMS0UTt
— Florian Plettenberg (@Plettigoal) June 10, 2025
Time, critically, to finish ongoing talks with Bayer Leverkusen and Bournemouth for Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez respectively.
Each offers, as followers are already conscious, are progressing easily, and the expectation stays that we’ll have full affirmation within the close to future.
Darwin Nunez seems to be to be a goner
We don’t must remind anybody of how restricted the contributions of Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez had been within the prior marketing campaign.
The probably actuality stays that our Portuguese worldwide is one dangerous pre-season away from being placed on the “to-be-sold” listing. While our No.9’s questionable utility and aim report in 2024/25 absolutely makes him a standout candidate to be bought this summer season.
Gregg Evans at The Athletic has already confirmed that Liverpool are ready to ‘take heed to bids’, so it’s now a query of whether or not any membership is ready to fulfill our valuation.
Succeed right here, and we may recoup a major chunk of the €100m (£84.6m) asking worth Frankfurt have set for Hugo Ekitike.
Extra Tales about Hugo Ekitike
How does Ekitike evaluate to Nunez & Jota?
Chelsea could maintain the benefit for Liverpool-linked Ekitike, but when we’re severe about holding on to our 2024/25 Premier League title, the Frenchman seems to be one to observe.
If we’re on the lookout for a long-term alternative for Diogo Jota, Richard Hughes may do a lot worse than the Bundesliga gem.
(Snapshot courtesy of DataMB)
The 22-year-old already has some fairly spectacular goalscoring attributes. Nevertheless, it needs to be famous that Ekitike’s most up-to-date season falls wanting Jota’s numbers within the 2023/24 marketing campaign with the 28-year-old registering 15 objectives in 1,711 minutes.
That’s a fee of 1 aim each 114.06 minutes, placing the Liverpool man within the 96.fifth percentile for non-penalty objectives (albeit with an inferior percentile of 78.2 for xG).
What makes Hugo Ekitike stand out in contrast, nevertheless, is his exceptional dribbling talents.
Gamers
Progressive carries (all competitions) per 90
Profitable dribbles per sport
Profitable 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
* High-flight stats (Bundesliga & Premier League) in 2024/25, by way of Sofascore & FBref
The Bundesliga hitman is undoubtedly nonetheless fairly a uncooked expertise, however there’s some severe potential for Liverpool to unlock within the coming years. If we are able to discover a manner to enhance Ekitike’s ending quantity (he underperformed his xG within the Bundesliga by 6.67 in 2024/25), we’ll have one thing of an all-rounder on our palms.
That’s, in fact, if we significantly intend to escalate our curiosity.
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