EXCLUSIVE: John Arne Riise: ‘Hugo Ekitike has been amazing – maybe player of the season for Liverpool.’ | OneFootball

Ahead of Liverpool FC’s final match of the season, former Reds star John Arne Riise sat down with Get French Football News to review the season of Liverpool’s French internationals Hugo Ekitike and Ibrahima Konaté.

The World Cup is coming up and unfortunately one player who will not be facing Norway with France is Hugo Ekitike. I assume you’ve been following him this year because of the Liverpool connection. I just wanted to know what your thoughts were on him and the season that he has had at Liverpool.

I’ve got to be honest – when Liverpool signed him I didn’t know much about him but I think he has been amazing for Liverpool. Amazing. I think people at the beginning of season didn’t really know him so well and there was also that Alexander Isak situation going on so people were looking more at Isak than Ekitike.

But Ekitike has maybe been player of the season for Liverpool this year. He’s been amazing, especially compared to what people expected. And I’m so sad for him that he picked up the injury. In sports in general but in football as well it can be brutal, you know? You play for so long, you train for so many years and then you’re looking forward to a World Cup or European championship and then one challenge or one thing can happen and you get injured just before. I think he could have had a great World Cup if was he was fit so I feel sorry for him because he’s had an amazing season and I can’t wait for him to get fit again and hopefully he can do as well next season.

I hope so. He’d only just broken into the France squad, but he played so well already that I think he would have maybe started for them.

Yeah, if he if he had kept his form going. But then again, you have to understand the manager as well because when you have a national team, you want to have that team connection. But he would have been knocking on the door to start a few games and maybe throughout the World Cup he would have been the striker who maybe helped France go all the way.

The other Liverpool-France connection is Ibrahima Konaté, who maybe hasn’t had such a good season. What do you think of how his season has gone?

He’s a difficult one because when he is on form and at his best he and Virgil Van Dijk are such a powerful partnership. But there are some games where I’m feeling like I’m just waiting for Konaté to make a mistake or waiting for him to slip up or waiting to him to do a silly pass. It’s like I have that feeling in the games when it’s getting tight that he’s the one who can maybe make a mistake or a bad decision.

Which is sad because defenders, if they make a mistake, they’re conceding a goal more or less, so it’s sad because everybody makes mistakes. But I just wish sometimes, with him, to be more like if you’re in doubt then just kick the ball away, if you’re in trouble just smash it away – that kind of feeling.

He’s been great in some games, don’t get me wrong, but he’s been up and down this season. But when he’s at his best, he’s one of the best ones with Van Dijk in the Premier League, but he needs to be more consistent when it when it comes to performance. I don’t know if it’s a lack of concentration or he loses focus. But if you talk to Liverpool fans and you see the games, you just feel like “ah something’s going to happen”. And I just wish that he could get that feeling away from me!

John Arne Riise was speaking exclusively to Get French Football News courtesy of Campobet

GFFN | Jeremy Smith