The Ekitike and Isak Show

We finally got a glimpse of Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak on the pitch together for more than 10 minutes against Eintracht Frankfurt. What did we learn?

A football team is built through partnerships. Players link up, from side to side or back to front. Making these relationships harmonious is how a club makes beautiful music.

The lack of established pairings is partly what is holding Liverpool back this season. Whether Arne Slot intends to regularly play Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak together is yet to be revealed but they started up front in the Reds’ 5-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday.

Front twos are not in fashion. Per FBRef, a Premier League team’s starting formation ended in ‘2’ on 56 occasions in 2024/25, 7.4 per cent of the time. Even then, this total included Liverpool fielding Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai as false 10s against Manchester City, before Pep Guardiola deployed Phil Foden and Omar Marmoush at Old Trafford. They’re hardly Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn.

An article on Not The Top 20, an EFL newsletter, declared 2005/06 as the pinnacle of strike duos. Playing two men up top isn’t even that common in lower league football these days.

It has become something of a break glass option for Liverpool. Jürgen Klopp used variations of 4-4-2 in the autumn of 2022/23 when his side’s form collapsed along with the legs of its central midfielders. Slot had only used English football’s stereotypical formation in a League Cup game at Brighton prior to Wednesday.

Four consecutive defeats will lead a manager to roll a few dice. Ekitike and Isak had only shared the pitch for 16 minutes before starting together in Germany; they had six at Galatasaray before the Frenchman went off injured, then 10 against Manchester United when Slot threw everything he had at the Red Devils.

There was a single pass between the pair in the latter match, Ekitike getting the ball to Isak as Liverpool looked to counter. It’s a shame they didn’t get more than 45 minutes against Frankfurt but it’s interesting to see how they interacted and what moves they made.

What a game the former Newcastle man had, by the way. Did you see his two pre-assists? Glorious.

That’s stretching the truth ever so slightly. Oh, look, it’s snapped. Isak did not play passes to players who set up goals, the standard definition of a pre- (or ‘hockey’) assist. What did happen was that attempted passes he made were put behind for the corners from which Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté headed home. One of them occurred following the only pass he received from Ekitike, not that he sent any in the opposite direction.

Isak’s off-ball movement may have played a part in these goals too. The 26-year-old started centrally for a Liverpool corner in the 22nd minute, pulling towards the near post zone when it was taken. Several defenders went with him, so it’s interesting he was at the back post for the later corners when his central defensive colleagues scored in near post regions. Coincidence? Probably, but it’s something to monitor.

Isak touch map vs Frankfurt, via SofaScore

To even be this tangentially involved in two goals is pretty remarkable as he only had 14 touches. That’s more than it sounds for half a game; Isak averaged 28.3 per 90 minutes in league football for Real Sociedad, 32.1 for Newcastle. It’s around par.

It made sense to focus on the Swedish half of the Reds' front two when re-watching the match as he has not flown out of the Liverpool traps in the way Ekitike has. There is far more pressure upon Isak’s shoulders.

The duo officially started on the right and left of the front line respectively, though they were not static, swapping places at times. It was noticeable that if either of them dropped deep, it was likelier to be the number 22; in one instance, Ekitike moved down field to exchange passes with Florian Wirtz, while Isak remained high in the hope of being the next link in the chain towards goal.

The forwards were certainly near each other at points. Here’s an example when Cody Gakpo created a big chance for Conor Bradley. Instances like this may be more instructive for improvements over the moments when Isak touched the ball, as they show how certain Reds’ attacks eluded his involvement.

The style of diagonal ball or cross used here was a productive outlet last season, with Gakpo and Mohamed Salah linking up to devastating effect. The issue from Isak’s perspective is that such moves tend to bypass the man in the middle. We saw it here, and also for the back post big chance which Salah thrashed wide against United:

There were also a lot of high, lofted passes from deeper areas sent in Isak’s direction on Wednesday evening. Jones delivered an unsuccessful one shortly before his midfield colleague Szoboszlai created an Opta-defined big chance for Isak in similar fashion. Curtis tried again in the 15th minute, and though his pass found its Swedish target, Isak was forced wide out of the box in order to retain possession.

The closest a cross came to finding him productively came from Ekitike, which feels like a positive. Sadly a defender blocked the delivery, but the former Frankfurt forward crossed from the zone in which Trent Alexander-Arnold had so much success. This sort of pass looks a much better option for Isak to receive.

It was striking that even within the number nine’s small touch total there were a couple that felt like they barely counted. Two that showed on Isak’s WhoScored touch map were listed as him being caught offside, one of which was when he closed down an opponent following kick-off.

He made almost as many off-ball actions too, recording nine pressures during his time on the pitch. Once again this broadly matches what Isak has done before, as it equates to 24.3 per 90 when possession-adjusted, against his figures of 26.5 and 21.8 in the previous two Premier League campaigns.

As important as this is, it’s what Isak does in possession that will determine whether he, Slot and Liverpool are successful in future. As welcome as the 5-1 win undoubtedly was, it shouldn’t overshadow that the attack featuring the most expensive player in English football history is very much a work in progress. It isn’t just Isak’s fitness but how he fits into the side that matters.