Liverpool's Origi - Fans Corner

One thing is for sure, since Divock Origi arrived at Liverpool Football Club he hasn’t set the world on fire. While he has shown glimpses of what he can do, he has frustrated a lot of us fans more than he has impressed us.

When he signed for Liverpool in 2012, everyone was expecting big things from him, especially after his performances for Belgium in the World Cup in Brazil the previous summer. I was delighted Liverpool had signed him, he was a young striker, hungry to succeed and who had shown on the biggest stage of them all he could mix it with the big boys. And mix it up he did. But any sense of europhia I felt at his signing for Liverpool quickly turned to tears when I realised, that instead of him coming straight to Liverpool, he would spend one last season in France. And what a disaster that turned out to be. His performances at Lille dipped so much that he was named in the worst team in France for last season. So him coming back to Liverpool after that for me wasn’t ideal. But after seeing the disaster that was Mario Balotelli I thought and hoped Origi wpuld offer smething different in the Liverpool attack.

Like so many others in the Liverpool team under Brendan Rodgers, Origi wasn’t given much of a chance in the first few weeks at Liverpool this season to play in his natural position and because of this it turned some fans against him. Straight away he was compared with Iago Apas and Fabio Borini and branded a failure, he was deemed not good enough to play for Liverpool. He was deemed a waste of money and some fans wanted him moved on or loaned out to be forgotten about and eventually sold on or have his contract cancelled by mutual consent.

But then a marvellous thing happened. Liverpool releaved Brendan Rodgers of his duties as Liverpool manager and appointed Jürgen Klopp. This was to give Origi the boost he needed to push on. With the arrival of Klopp his slate was wiped clean and he was given a second chance to impress. After a ropey game against Spurs in Klopp’s first game in charge, for me Origi has come on leaps and bounds over the last number of weeks. His confidence has sky rocketed and he proved this by scoring a fantastic hat trick against Southampton recently in the Capital One Cup.

While I know he’s not going to go on to become Liverpool’s answer to Lionel Messi or replace previous strikers who have left the club like Luis Suarez and Fernando Torres I believe he has the ability to become a very good squad player. He has loads of time on his hands, after all he is only nineteen. He shouldn’t in my opinion be shot down and judged on a few poor games under Brendan Rodgers. Remember before Origi joined Liverpool Jürgen Klopp had scouted him while he was manager of Borussia Dortmund. So he can’t be all that bad then right? You can see Klopp obviously fancies him as a player, otherwise he wouldn’t be getting as much game time as he is lately under the German. Obviously he can see on the training pitch what he can do and what his potential is and we as fans are just going to have to trust the managers decision.

I feel it’s very unfair on fans to judge him for a number of reasons, he came back from France possibly low on confidence, especially having made the worst team in France. He has moved to a new country, new surroundings, has already had to deal with a managerial change since he arrived and all that is evolved in that and as I already said he’s only nineteen. He’s still only a young lad. How many nineteen year olds have moved to a new country, not knowing too many people and have had to adapt to a new style of football and have settled in straight away? I’m also sure there is possibly a language barrier there aswell. Look he hasn’t done anything to win me over just yet but there is something about him I like and I’m not going to fully judge him until maybe this time next year and I believe everyone reading this should do the same.