Liverpool will miss Divock Origi as he prepares to depart this summer. One miserable statistic shows how badly.
Liverpool lost the Champions League final 1-0 on Saturday in a heartbreaking game. It was one the Reds largely controlled, after all, but they were unable to take any chances. Real Madrid, on the other hand, carved out one glorious opportunity and took it.
What’s particularly worrying, however, is that it wasn’t anything new. Liverpool played three cup finals this season for a total of 330 minutes – that’s over five hours of football. They didn’t manage a single goal in that time, with both the EFL Cup and FA Cup going all the way to penalties.
That is worrying, you have to say. While bad luck and a couple of great goalkeepers made things difficult, you’d still think Liverpool had enough to score once in five hours.
And so it’s a stat that perhaps show off just how much Liverpool will miss Divock Origi going forward. The Belgian is off to pastures new.
Liverpool will miss Divock Origi
Origi was never someone to get Liverpool 20 goals a season. Though, that’s partly because Liverpool wouldn’t give Origi 20 games a season.
He was instead an impact player for the squad, capable of entering into a game and finding a goal from somewhere. But he didn’t do it by magic.
Jurgen Klopp has been able to throw Origi onto the pitch in order to switch up Liverpool’s attack. He’s their only ‘physical’ forward – he’s over 6ft tall, can occupy multiple defenders in the box and is able to play with his back to goal. The squad doesn’t really have anyone else like that.
We saw as much in Paris. Klopp ended up with four forwards on the pitch but none of them could play that goal-poaching, target-man style role that Origi can. It meant that while Liverpool changed things in numbers, they couldn’t in style – Real faced largely the same kind of attack regardless of who was on the pitch.
With Sadio Mané also likely leaving Liverpool this summer, it’s an opportunity to introduce another Origi-style forward. Someone who can give something different and change the attack when things aren’t going to plan. Otherwise, the Reds risk remaining predictable..