Divock Origi has just found a final chance at a Liverpool future. The Belgian looked as though his Anfield career was a lost cause.
Diogo Jota is out for the foreseeable future and that is a disaster for everyone at Liverpool except Divock Origi. This is actually exactly what he needed.
We recently wrote that Origi has no Liverpool future. Jurgen Klopp appeared to suggest as much at Midtjylland.
The boss took him off in that game, despite it being a dead-rubber and Liverpool needing to rest players. He still didn’t want him out there, though.
Making things worse, is that Origi’s performance against Midtjylland was his best of the season.
He’s started zero Premier League games this campaign but has made the lineup for three in the Champions League. Origi played over an hour in each, too.
And his stats over those three games read like this: one shot, one pass leading to a shot, two tackles, one dribble. Again, that’s over three games.
That shot, the pass, and the two dribbles all came against Midtjylland last week. He hadn’t managed any of them in his two previous starts – over two hours of football, that is.
And despite that being by far his most productive performance, Klopp still took him off after 70 minutes. Not a good sign, then.
But now, somehow, Origi has a reprieve. It was difficult to see how he’d ever get a game again and yet here we are, with Origi as the only alternative in attack like we were a year ago.
Jota won’t play for a while and Takumi Minamino is playing in midfield. Thus if Klopp wants to rest forwards at all – and he very much will want to do that – then he must play Origi.
As we saw against Fulham, in fact. Klopp brought Origi on for the last six minutes as Liverpool chased a winner.
That was a significant promotion from his only previous Premier League appearance this season – one minute against Leicester City so Klopp could bring Sadio Mane off slightly early.
And Origi will keep the ‘goal-getter’ role for the next month, at the very least. Liverpool will turn to him when they need to freshen-up their attack or rest anyone in the forward line.
Origi, as a result, has a chance to shine that he otherwise wouldn’t have. It’s a final chance give himself a future with Liverpool.
Receive a digest of our best Liverpool content each week direct to your mailbox
