Olivier Giroud makes exciting World Cup prediction regarding ‘talented’ Liverpool favourite | OneFootball

Olivier Giroud has talked up the chances of one ‘talented’ Liverpool player going to the World Cup next summer.

Chief among the multitude of the Reds’ pre-season signings was Hugo Ekitike from Eintracht Frankfurt for an initial £69m (potentially rising to £79m with add-ons), and although that fee was overshadowed by the £125m spent on Alexander Isak, it’s the former who’s had more of an impact at Anfield so far.

The 23-year-old netted braces against both Leeds and Brighton in his last two Premier League games, taking his season’s tally to 10 across all competitions, twice as many as the next-most prolific player in Arne Slot’s squad.

A strong start to the campaign saw the striker given his senior France debut in September and he went on to play in all six of their World Cup qualifiers, netting his first goal for Les Bleus in a 4-0 thrashing of Ukraine last month.

Giroud talks up Ekitike’s World Cup chances

Giroud was a guest pundit on Sky Sports‘ MNF last night, and he claimed that Ekitike is in with a more than plausible chance of being selected by Didier Deschamps for the tournament in North America in six months’ time.

The ex-Arsenal and Chelsea marksman said of Liverpool’s number 22: “He’s now part of the French squad, even with so many talented strikers in that team. I think he has a good chance of being called for the World Cup.

“It was not easy for him when they signed Isak for so much money, but he plays a lot of games and he’s quite efficient. He’s got that ability to finish well.”

(Photo by Franco Arland/Getty Images)

Ekitike should make France’s World Cup squad on current form

Deschamps has his pick of arguably the greatest wealth of attackers in world football, with Kylian Mbappe, Bradley Barcola, Michael Olise, Rayan Cherki and Marcus Thuram among the forwards at his disposal.

However, on the form that Ekitike has shown for Liverpool, he’s wholly deserving of a place in the squad for the 2026 World Cup, if he can continue producing the goods at club level for the remainder of this campaign.

After the Reds signed Isak, there had been plenty of debate as to how Slot would fit both centre-forwards into the same starting XI, and whether the Frenchman would find it hard to get into the team ahead of the ex-Newcastle striker.

It’s to the 23-year-old’s immense credit that he’s now made himself an automatic starter, with the head coach either compelled to tweak his system to accommodate both centre-forwards, or consign the £125m Swede to the bench until such time that he’s outperforming his positional peer.

Ekitike will be fully aware of the competition for places in the France squad and that he needs to keep performing consistently for Liverpool if he’s to make Deschamps’ cut next summer.

If he is on the plane to North America in June, it’d be a fitting reward for his endeavours at Anfield, where he’s quickly become a firm fans’ favourite. Let’s hope he can keep scoring at a rate which’ll make him an instant pick for Les Bleus’ World Cup roster.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Brighton press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: