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Fabrizio Romano has made an intriguing claim about Manchester United and how they are potentially influencing Liverpool’s Hugo Ekitike chase.

Liverpool have intensified their interest in signing the French striker in the last couple of days.

The Reds keen to sign a new No.

9 this summer had made their intentions known to both Newcastle United and Eintracht Frankfurt.

Alexander Isak was the club’s primary target and Liverpool were said to be open to paying a record British transfer fee to land the Swedish striker.

However, Newcastle have insisted that Isak is not for sale, causing Liverpool to turn their full attention to singing Hugo Ekitike.

The Reds have been courting the Frenchman for sometime , but have now officially sent in a bid for his signature.

According to reports, Liverpool offered Frankfurt €80 for the 23-year-old.

However, their initial bid was soundly rejected by Eintracht Frankfurt, who are said to be looking at around €100m for their prized asset.

Although Liverpool, is is said had indicated that they were willing to offer more money than Newcastle for Ekitike, Frankfurt’s position and insistence on getting a higher fee is reportedly not only because of Liverpool’s willingness to pay higher, but partly because the Bundesliga side believes that Manchester United could still enter the race.

This is according to football transfer expert, Fabrizio Romano, who asserts that “someone

Speaking in the latest episode of his Here We Go Podcast on YouTube, Romano said this when asked why Frankfurt rejected Liverpool’s €80m offer:

“First of all, because it is still not the money they want.

Remember Eintracht always started from €100m.

Probably it is not going to be the final fee, but Eintracht still insist for more than €78 million as a package for Ekitike.

“And something I can reveal to you here is that because there is someone internally at Eintracht that believes that Manchester United can jump into the race in the next days?

Manchester United will sign a striker this summer, and they believe at Eintracht that they could appear for Hugo Ekitike.”

However, Romano also asserted that despite the potential of Manchester United entering that race, Ekitike wants to join Liverpool.

“What I can tell you is that at the moment from the player’s camp, the feeling is that the player wants to go to Liverpool,” he added.

“The position of the player is to give priority to Liverpool, and so I still see Liverpool as favourites and Liverpool remaining in conversation with Eintracht to try to close the deal very soon.”

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