Hugo Ekitike Set for ‘Fascinating’ Battle With “Rash” Maxime Esteve

Relegation is becoming increasingly likely for Burnley this season, but how confident are their fans of surprising Liverpool this weekend?

The Reds welcome the Clarets to Anfield on Saturday (3pm), looking to strengthen their Champions League hopes after an 11-game unbeaten run.

Scott Parker’s side sit 19th in the Premier League and eight points adrift of safety, with a return to the Championship on the cards.

Here, This Is Anfield’s Henry Jackson spoke to Burnley season ticket holder Reece Foulds (@16Foulds) to preview a big afternoon for both sides.

How happy are you with Burnley’s season?

Not particularly happy at the moment, given our current position of 19th in the table!

I’m sure, like most Burnley supporters ahead of the season, there was a sense of doubt considering our previous two Premier League campaigns ended in relegation.

But three wins on the board come the end of October gave me hope that we could crack it this year.

Unfortunately, since Halloween, we’ve had a consistent nightmare – pardon the pun! – and our current run of 12 without a win has put survival down as a more unlikely target to achieve.

Talk us through the main positives and negatives to date?

One clear positive is that despite the high volume of defeats, we are giving a better account of ourselves in games.

Under Vincent Kompany in 2023/24, the football he tried to execute just wasn’t sustainable for us, which resulted in us conceding at least three goals in 12 games.

We were unlucky at the start of the season not to get points against Man United and Liverpool, had it not been for last-minute goals.

A negative is our unfortunate self-destruct mechanism in games.

There have been many matches this season where we’ve had a result in reach and then just switched off.

The Premier League is ruthless and we’ve been punished for it, with a prime example being Brentford away, conceding one minute after getting an equaliser.

Who has impressed and who has struggled?

You’ve got to look at the two experienced players we brought in during the summer in Martin Dubravka and Kyle Walker.

They have helped guide us through tricky periods in games, whether it be decision-making or a key save.

Whilst we are ultimately still struggling, I would say we could have been in a much worse position without them.

The other would be Zian Flemming. Considering he’s not a natural striker and would prefer to play in the No. 10 role, he is our joint-top scorer with five goals and has been our most effective option up front.

It pains me to say, but Maxime Esteve hasn’t adapted to the Premier League as I had hoped.

Don’t get me wrong, he has the potential to play for a much bigger club than ours, but rash mistakes have crept into his game this term.

Injuries haven’t helped him alongside his unfortunate afternoon at the Etihad, conceding two own goals.

Are you confident of beating the drop?

I’m not as confident as I once was, that’s for sure. I haven’t completely ruled it out, though.

Making up an eight-point gap from 17 games is possible – we just need to start stringing some results together quickly.

We are in desperate need of a natural, proven striker, should an option become available before the end of the month.

How do you rate Liverpool’s season and would you keep Arne Slot?

I follow Liverpool closely as several of my close friends are season ticket holders. One of them, Ste Schofield, sadly passed away in 2024 before the end of the season.

He proudly has a photo up in The Albert pub behind the Kop, so I look forward to seeing it on Saturday.

From what Liverpool achieved last season, it’s definitely been a dropoff, but I feel as though there have been mitigating circumstances for it.

The players could still pull things together between now and May.

The league is definitely gone, but making sure Champions League football is secured, and a cup win, would be a satisfactory conclusion given what happened before Christmas.

I would personally say Arne Slot has enough credit in the bank to be given the remainder of the season as a minimum.

You can’t be a terrible manager if you’ve won a league title, and the way in which he conducted himself through the tragic death of Diogo Jota shouldn’t be forgotten.

If signs continue that the new players are linking together more fluently, give him a third year. If not, shake hands and move on in the summer.

If you could only have one Liverpool player at Burnley, who would it be?

It’s probably the most boring answer, but it has to be Virgil van Dijk.

Even if he’s not at the same level of performance from years gone by, his ability to lead a team is still second to none.

Alongside his ability to make those around him more relaxed in games, he would be brilliant for our defence.

Where will the key battles lie?

I’ve been particularly impressed with Jeremie Frimpong the past few weeks following his return from injury. He is a real threat in the attacking areas and could be a handful for our left-back on the day.

I’m also fascinated to see how Esteve can handle Hugo Ekitike. I feel you would have been better just sticking with him last summer and didn’t need Alexander Isak.

His early career in England has been more than impressive and he will only get better.

From our perspective, it’s about being braver on the ball. We need to treat this as almost a free hit.

Jaidon Anthony scored a brilliant goal off the bench last time out after a poor run of form. Hopefully, he can take that into this weekend.

Finally, what’s your prediction?

I would love to get that first win to end our current sequence, but that’s too much to expect from this weekend.

I expect Liverpool to dominate the match, but perhaps we can score to make it interesting.

Ultimately, I have to go with a 2-1 win for the champions.

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