Largely… nah.
Origi had some moments and some big goals (that is to say, since his 18/19 rise from the dead). But his cult is greater than what he produced for us. We used him from the start only when the schedule was tight, picked games when we could tolerate him starting and often tried to “hide” him on the left of attack. His game became what, winning duels (if he was bothered to give his all that day), making a few runs and most importantly, nick a goal. Everything else, he was like a player less on the pitch for us.
In his first two seasons he showed good promise, but unfortunately due to a number of reasons, he went off the track. If you asked me between 2015 and 2017, I would’ve said, yeah, Origi is material to be at Liverpool for the next years (but then we quickly went up a few levels since 2017). We trusted Solanke ahead of him in 17/18, who was also not good enough at the time.
Well, there’s a reason why Minamino didn’t play more than he did. I’m not saying “not good enough” like he simply cannot be on the pitch for Liverpool, but… not good enough to merit more. We can use other words to say the same thing, but there’s no need to beat around the bush.
I was hoping Taki would be at least a Yossi type of player, but for our style of play and structure, it wasn’t enough. Being part of a pressing game at Salzburg in Austria is cute, but that’s levels below us. Monaco now is also a level below, which is why he’s doing better. I’m thankful for his service, behaviour and mostly cup glory. He can have that.
Our front 3 was healthy (don’t even want to imagine how it would’ve been otherwise), but let’s not act like we were absolutely calm with our backups, like we weren’t worried and hoped that it would somehow work out with what we had. Who knows, maybe we would’ve won more if we had better. But I know, even the absolutely biggest and richest clubs don’t have 22 equally top players.
Those were clearly players we didn’t seriously count on, otherwise they would’ve both played more and remained longer in more important roles. It’s really as simple as that.
Some of them remained a few years, because when you’re at the top, it’s harder to sell them. You cannot change a huge number of players every season. But it was always like “well, we don’t have better, we’ll have to work it out until we get new ones” rather than “Bobby’s off form, but that’s alright because XY off the bench is maybe ready to come in and take the chance, threaten his position”.