'I watched clips on YouTube' - Hugo Ekitike gives humble response to Steven Gerrard after Liverpool legend compares star striker to Fernando Torres

Ekitike scored Liverpool's first two goals in their win against Newcastle. After Anthony Gordon had given the visitors the lead, the Frenchman slid in an equaliser after Florian Wirtz wriggled his way past several defenders and pulled a low cross back into the danger zone. Shortly after, Ekitike spearheaded a fast and direct move straight from an Alisson Becker goal kick after some quick thinking from a pitch-side ball boy, with the eventually skipping past a sleeping Newcastle defence and poking in his second of the evening.

Second-half strikes from Wirtz and the returning Ibrahima Konate capped off a huge victory for Liverpool, who were beaten 3-2 in the last minute at Bournemouth last week but have responded well in recent days, finishing third in the Champions League group phase after hammering Qarabag 6-0.

While on punditry duty for TNT Sports, Gerrard dared to compare Ekitike to former Anfield favourite Torres, who scored 81 goals in 142 games for Liverpool between 2007 and 2011.

"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," Gerrard said. "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.

"There are a lot of similarities, pace, power, you can score, you can assist."

These comments were then put to Ekitike, who admitted that he wasn't able to watch Torres' Liverpool teams as a youngster but is aware of the striker's legacy. Ekitike responded: "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."

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Ekitike is now up to 15 goals in all competitions for Liverpool since joining from Eintracht Frankfurt last summer. He was also asked if he had a target in mind for his end-of-season tally, to which he replied: "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. We came here with confidence. but I think tonight was also about team spirit. Everybody tonight was running everywhere."

Saturday's victory moved Liverpool back up to fifth in the Premier League table, sitting one point behind Chelsea and one ahead of Manchester United prior to their game against Fulham on Sunday. Next up for the Reds is a mouth-watering clash against Manchester City next weekend at Anfield.