Newcastle tried and failed to sign Hugo Ekitike in 2022 and have seen a new club-record £70m bid turned down this week; the Magpies want Ekitike to play alongside Alexander Isak; Newcastle have held talks with Ekitike’s representatives in Austria
Eintracht Frankfurt have turned down Newcastle’s club-record £70m offer for Hugo Ekitike.
Sky Sports News can confirm the German club rejected Newcastle’s formal bid this morning – as first reported by Sky Germany.
Frankfurt believe there are other clubs who have signalled they are willing to pay more for the striker, whom they value at £85m.
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Newcastle held talks with Ekitike’s representatives in Austria on Monday, as they look to sign the striker they have kept tabs on for a number of years.
Newcastle tried and failed to sign Ekitike in 2022 but he chose PSG instead. Frankfurt then paid PSG just £14m for the 23-year-old last summer.
Alexander Isak is Newcastle’s current club-record signing after he joined in a £63m deal from Real Sociedad in August 2022.
Ekitike scored 22 goals in 48 games across all competitions last season for Frankfurt as he helped them qualify for the Champions League.
He has been a Manchester United target this summer after the club explored the conditions of a deal, while Chelsea and Liverpool have also been interested.
Newcastle have spent £55m on one major summer signing so far following the arrival of Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest.
How much are Newcastle willing to pay for Ekitike?
Sky Sports News’ Keith Downie:
“If anything it shows Newcastle’s ambitions this window. They’ve already spent 52m+3m in add-ons on Anthony Elanga.
“They are very keen on Ekitike, they tried to sign him three years ago from Rennes in France but instead he went to PSG. That didn’t work out, he signed for Frankfurt and had a terrific season last year, scoring 22 goals.
“Newcastle have kept tabs on the striker. Talks as we understand are still ongoing.
“The deal at this time looks unlikely as Newcastle only have so much to spend. The budget is tight having signed Elanga too. I feel like £70-75m is about as high as Newcastle will go. Time will tell but there is a gap in the valuation.”
Ekitike ready for the next step after Bundesliga breakthrough
Hugo Ekitike of Eintracht Frankfurt celebrates scoring his team’s third goal during the Bundesliga match between Eintracht Frankfurt and 1.
Image:Who is Frankfurt striker Ekitike?
Sky Sports’ Adam Bate:
When Hugo Ekitike was still a teenager at Stade Reims, the coaching staff prepared a development plan for him. They analysed the performances of Kylian Mbappe and then picked out two more players that Ekitike might realistically aspire to replicate.
“These were players with similar profiles from teams that were better than our team, but not at the distance Paris Saint-Germain were from us,” Oscar Garcia, Reims’ then head coach, told Sky Sports. “We challenged him to reach the level of the other two strikers.”
On the face of it, that was a perfectly reasonable short-term target. Prior to his final season at Reims, Ekitike had not even scored a goal in France’s top tier. He had spent the second half of the previous campaign on loan at Danish club Vejle Boldklub.
He returned to Reims as the fourth-choice forward but soon forced Oscar to reassess. Soon after that, the two strikers whose level he had been encouraged to hit were no longer in his sights. “Within months, he wanted to reach the same level as Mbappe.”
It is a tale that offers a glimpse into the mindset of the Eintracht Frankfurt forward who has long been linked with a move to the Premier League.
“He always was a talented player but some coaches did not like him because of his profile and sometimes because of his character,” concedes Oscar. “They were thinking he was a little bit arrogant. He always wanted to be compared with the best ones.”
