Hugo Ekitike produced arguably his best performance in a Liverpool shirt with a brace in the 4-1 win over Newcastle and Steven Gerrard compared him to a Liverpool legend.
The former Champions League-winning midfielder formed a deadly combination with Fernando Torres at Anfield in his pomp and sees similarities between the Spaniard and Ekitike.
Speaking on punditry duty for TNT on Saturday night, Gerrard said: ‘It’s Torres-like. He just gets it out of his feet and it’s that toe poke. He reminds me of Torres, this player, every time I watch him.
‘He’s scoring similar types of goals, where if you give him space in the channel, he’ll run it, he’s too quick, you can’t catch him and he’s deadly.’
Torres was referring to Ekitike’s second goal in which the defender Malick Thiaw gave him too much respect on the outside.
The Frenchman pushed forward before slotting a toe-poke into the far corner past Nick Pope with ruthless efficiency.
Hugo Ekitike scored twice in Liverpool’s 4-1 win over Newcastle on Saturday night
Steven Gerrard says Ekitike reminds him of former team-mate Fernando Torres
His first of the night was an instinctive finish after clever movement that was picked out in the box by Florian Wirtz, with whom he is developing a deadly combination.
Ekitike spoke to the TNT pundits after the game and when the Torres comparison was put to him, he offered a humble response.
The 23-year-old said: ‘Back in the day, I couldn’t watch the Premier League to be honest, my mum didn’t pay so I couldn’t see!
‘I have watched some clips of YouTube. I will never put myself on that bracket. He was an incredible player.
‘If I reach his level it would be great. I have to keep working.’
Gerrard chipped in again saying: ‘There are a lot of similarities, pace, power, you can score, you can assist.’
When asked if he had a target number of goals for the season, he added: ‘It’s a hard question, obviously I want to score a lot of goals, I’d love to be the top scorer of the club but I don’t think of a certain number, I just want to be involved in helping the team to win. I also love to give assists, like to Flo (Wirtz).’
Ekitike has now scored 14 goals in all competitions in an impressive debut season
‘We came here with confidence,’ he went on, but I think tonight was also about team spirit. Everybody tonight was running everywhere.’
Torres is one of Liverpool’s finest strikers and ended up with 65 goals in 102 appearances for the club before his controversial exit to join Chelsea.
Ekitike is already on 14 goals in all competitions for his new club having signed from Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer for £69million.
With Alexander Isak out for the long term with a broken leg, the burden has fallen on the Frenchman and he is showing himself to be up for the task.
