Ex-player: Divock ORIGI

Surely that has to go to anything to do with Everton?

I like Div but for the past 2-3 seasons he hasnā€™t been the type of back up forward weā€™ve needed to come on and instantly change a game,banging in the goals on a constant basis (iā€™m not saying he hasnā€™t come off the bench and scored important goals,he just doesnā€™t do it enough),also when given the chance to stake a claim to be a first team starter,he just doesnā€™t grab the opportunity,itā€™s like his mindset is a back up squad player.

We need someone with an aggressive personality and style of play,someone who doesnā€™t think the first 3 are better than them and that they can fight their way into a starter place and push Mane,Firmino and Salah to be even better or lose their place.

If we had a poll for Div to stay or be sold,iā€™d imagine most people would mainly vote for him to be sold and for us to try our luck with a new forward.

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So just needing to clarify for myself here. Do you really believe a forward as good as Lewandowski would not do better here than Origi? That itā€™s all just the way we set up? Can we have you write up the Origi sales brochure please because last time I looked weā€™ve been struggling to sell him at probably less than Ā£20m.

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Yeah, I think itā€™s easy to read the wrong thing into those Milner stories. As Milner says, he is the complete opposite end of the spectrum, and so part of that story is his amusement at someone who approaches things differently than he does. But by definition, pretty much the whole footballing world is less intense and focused than Milner is so it cannot be used as a criticism per se.

Watching this video again makes me think that we should keep him. :thinking: :laughing:

One thing to consider is that guys of his frame are usually late bloomers (ie. Drogba), and given his character, he might need more time to fulfil his potential. Maybe thatā€™s also why Klopp has been so patient with him until now. Iā€™m really intrigued to see how this season will pan out if he stays with us. Because the potential is there without a doubt, in spades.

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I agree with all that you said and that bolded part is the best we can do.

Unless itā€™s spread too thin, Ā£10M is a good price for a fringe player with just one year left on his contract.

It would genuinely amuse me if the club decides to renew his contract. In part because of the number of heads that would blow on here, but mainly because I too cannot see where it would be heading. He could genuinely be a late bloomer, but his main impediment to a more successful career here I think is his lack of mobility, that bit of explosive start that all our other forwards have that enables them not only to press more effectively, but to work with tighter spaces than he can.

It would signal to me that at least, the club doesnā€™t really care about fan opinion as much when it comes to managing the squad. It would also signal to me that theyā€™ve seen something in training to suggest that he might have more to develop in that area, or that at least heā€™s on sufficiently low enough wages that he can pull off a Shaqiri-like role in the team.

I do think they would probably hold out for the Ā£20m weā€™re reportedly demanding. If I recall correctly, the clubā€™s position has always been that heā€™s a useful member of the team, but the right price and heā€™s gone. I donā€™t think thatā€™s changed in any way over the last couple of seasons, and I donā€™t foresee it changing this time. The market seems pretty slim as well for who we could potentially get who would be an exciting addition, so they might well view it as worth keeping him for that additional season.

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We canā€™t expect, in our right frame of mind, any club, in their right frame of mind, to pay that much. But yeah, we have over three more weeks, so a bit of posturing shouldnā€™t hurt.

Yes, but Iā€™m not entirely sure thatā€™s how the club management will be thinking. The amount of money set is probably also dependent on what else is available in the market, i.e. what price we would be paying for any new addition. Likewise, no club would pay the amount that we value Salah or ManĆ© at, so they wonā€™t move. A club may yet pay what we value Shaqiri at, in part because his relative value to us may have been lowered by the emergence of other players like Jones and Elliott.

I sometimes wonder if some understand how negotiations actually work.

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And nor should it.

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I donā€™t think itā€™s a million miles away from another player on our books Karius.

Now playing devils advocate as a keeper I could argue that he is a late bloomer (common in keepers) that the contract extension given to him was an indicator of clubs plans (notably given after his error), or try convince myself that he could force himself above others who have subsequently joinedā€¦ā€¦

But I would be kidding myself. Itā€™s simply not going to happen here.

Origi turns 27 next season, and at very best he is behind Jota. But seemingly now below a further 2 or perhaps even 3 players. (AoC, Minsmino, Elliot).

The biggest difference in Origi and Karius is sentimental reasons. Origi will always be associated with key special moment, and unfortunately for Karius so is he. The cold harsh reality is both are surplus, and would struggle even to make the 9 man bench next season.

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No hate from me but he should have left last year and the last season showed that he is not very useful as a squad player.

I have accepted that it looks like he wants to see out his contract.

At his age he should be looking to get an improved contract but that wonā€™t happen if his next season is similar to the last two.

We might also be fucked if we have to rely too much on him (for example during the Africa Cup).

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I think we are stuck with what we have. If Divock can turn it around this season and really have a similar impact to 2018/2019 season then it will be worth it.

I think nowadays players in general, especially the non performing players have a expiration date before they need to be moved on. Origi needs to show us the qualities that can contribute to our play and not be a hindrance to open play for us. Because teams are becoming aggressive and we get killed on counters when we lose the ball as recklessly as some of the games we have been involved in last season, Origi has made alot of mistakes that makes people just shake their heads. Im hoping if he stays he will be a factor cause really in the striker department, we have no one else, and if Firmino and Mane misfire again, we need to depend on Jota and Salah to bail us out.

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Iā€™ve got to admit, this is one heck of a hook. It might not come as a surprise that I donā€™t rate Karius as badly as most people do, even though I think that there is simply no space left for him on our team.

So Iā€™ve tried to find evidence of a contract extension that we gave to Karius 2018 and onwards, and the only mention I could find was in an Echo article talking about his loan to Besiktas, and how we would make him sign a yearā€™s extension before he went on loan. If the article is indeed factually accurate on all counts, then it makes perfect sense. He was going out on a 2 year loan, after which we were expecting him to be sold compulsorily. Of course Besiktas are completely unreliable, to the point where they owed him unpaid wages, let alone completing the obligatory transfer. Now it seems that we also made sure that we were covered in the eventuality that they would not pay up, then at least he would have 2 years left on his contract when he returned, and we would have more options. Either we could loan him out again getting some loan fees while retaining some value, or sell him. Otherwise, he could just as well have seen out his contract, getting paid even though we had already moved on from him with our options.

Of course, if you take the articleā€™s claims as fact, then it suggests that the original plan was indeed to try to rehabilitate him ourselves. It seems that we wanted to sell Mignolet but there was no interest at all. It then became a race between the both of them to see who got a loan move out first. In other words, had things panned out a little differently, we would have retained Karius, and we may even have seen him play again for us in a competitive game.

As it stands, that was a contract extension that was more plausibly one that could have simply been to retain value on an asset. But what about Origi? He was given a new long-term contract. If we had been desperate to sell him, we would have extended his contract such that it would end this year, keep enough value such that we can still get rid of him for a decent price without tying us down with him for too long. Itā€™s unclear when this new contract expires. It is not too outlandish to suggest that we could well have extended his contract with his development in 2018/19 in mind, especially with what JĆ¼rgen said. With that extension, we could still sell him for a good amount if he stagnated, or we could benefit from an increase in his value if he grew as a player (which he has), and sell him on when it benefits all parties. Alternatively, if his wages werenā€™t too high, we could still keep him on the bench and bring him on when needed, as a settled option who is decent even if he isnā€™t world class.

My argument is that his current situation is a blend of the latter two. Heā€™s a great option to have, one whose 2019-20 season wasnā€™t as bad as many portray (even as his 2020-21 was one to wipe from memory). We would sell him if the right bid came in, because in his role, heā€™s much more replaceable. Presumably we have a plan of who to come in to replace him in this role if we do indeed sell him, but weā€™re not too fussed if we donā€™t. I would suggest that this probably means we have an eye on keeping him until we can bring in one of the brighter stars in the youth team.

I would argue otherwise actually. I donā€™t think theyā€™re as interchangeable as that. They might play the same positions (and therefore largely the same roles), but theyā€™re very different players, even just the 3 cited. Minamino is closest to Firmino, and so is more likely to play centrally, where people think Origi should play, but in our system, itā€™s a square peg in a round hole. I would say of those options you listed, Ox and Minamino are much more suited for that role, which requires good passing skills to help keep play moving, sort of like the hockey assist. Thanks to Firmino, it also is apparently the main trigger point for our press, which suits the mobility of the two of them much more than Origi for sure.

For the wider roles, they are actually more aligned to what Origi would do, since they are roles where we expect goals and assists from. I would argue that in a game where we already dominate and we need someone who can create and score, thatā€™s most like Origi. In a sense, heā€™s like early Salah in that he can do that, but heā€™s not sufficiently intense in pressing. Where Salah has improved on that, I donā€™t hold out hope that he can, just because he always seems to be so slow accelerating. When he did appear last season however, after the initial few games, he did show renewed commitment to defending, often popping up to nick the ball away in the way that ManĆ© does. Going on the counterattack after that was a different story howeverā€¦

When weā€™re looking for a more defensively robust player for that role however, Ox and Minamino would definitely dominate. Even then Iā€™d say that Ox is more of the ultra-defensive approach, whereas Minamino is more balanced. I canā€™t put my finger on why though. I canā€™t comment on Elliott as I donā€™t think Iā€™ve watched enough of him to know what his strengths and weaknesses are as a player. I thought he was rather one-footed, but heā€™s still ridiculously young, so whoā€™s to know what will happen. In any case, that does bias me to think that he would play only exclusively on the right or centrally, pretty much like a mini-Salah. While Origi has played on the right occasionally during a game, I think thereā€™s something that he loses when heā€™s there.

Which brings me to one more thing about him. One reason why Iā€™d think he is a late bloomer is that he seems to develop in fits and bursts, and that while intelligent, he seems to overthink play a lot. When he plays instinctively, I think is when most people would say that heā€™s showing his talent. I think the next stage for his development would be when he can knit the two together, and personally, this is what sets the best, like Salah and ManĆ©, apart from the rest. How often have we seen him with time and space, and when he finally picks the right option, gets closed down or misplaces the pass because play has moved on from there? And yet in some ridiculously tight moments he just pulls something out of the hat, like the goal against Spurs in the final, or his two against Everton? Itā€™s not a given, but I do think he can get there eventually.

One final note, is that despite our hindsight about how absolutely bad his past season has been, with a bit of better luck, he could easily have had at least a couple of goals. I seem to remember a couple of games where he either hit the post or just barely wide. The story of his season might have been drastically different then, especially considering that he normally is rather efficient with his shots, the most ludicrous example being of course the 2018-19 Champions League. But otherwise, he generally doesnā€™t take many shots, but when he does, they do go straight in.

Doesnā€™t even start in either the first 11 or second 11 in two different squads in two days. Surely he has to realise his future lies away from Liverpool now. He should have taken that Wolves move!

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Isnā€™t he injured?

Think heā€™s on bench.

Wondered if it was worth the effort trying to explain why he might have been left out of the starting lineup even if he has a future at Liverpool, but itā€™s obvious people like you have made up your minds about needing to get rid of him at all costs, so never mindā€¦

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That was a really good performance from yer man in the 45 minutes he was on. A couple of fumbled touches and missed passes, but otherwise quick feet and runs that sometimes werenā€™t into offside positions.