Should Liverpool pay £5m to solve their striking crisis? 100% yes
Published:
There are many ways in which the well-known striking crisis at Liverpool can supposedly be solved.
Cutting Mario Balotelli’s feet off, exposing Rickie Lambert to more than 30 seconds of action or telling Fabio Borini to imagine he’s back at Sunderland are all definite options, but Brendan Rodgers looks to be taking a different path.
The Northern Irishman, whose side are now 19/10 shots to retain their Champions League status after a differing start, wants to bring Lille’s Divock Origi to Anfield in January and is willing to pay £5m to do so.
The 20-year-old striker was signed for £10m by Rodgers in the summer, but was loaned back to his former club immediately in order to further aid his development.
Such thoughts on the future have been seemingly scrapped, with Rodgers now open to luzzing another £5m at Les Dogues in order to bring the livewire frontman to Merseyside.
Would plucking a young, developing striker out of his comfort zone and dumping him in the middle of a sorry situation, where the pressure dial is cranked so far to the right it’s almost hanging off, be worthwhile?
The answer is an emphatic yes. £15m for a senior international under the age of 21 is still all kinds of David Dickenson cheap, and would still make Origi less costly than Balotelli, who could then be sold on in January without Rodgers worrying about a lack of cover.
Origi showed he can handle pressure at the World Cup too where, having been a surprise call-up to Marc Wilmots’ squad, he quickly overthrew Romelu Lukaku to lead Belgium’s line and capped a fine tournament with the winning goal against Russia in the group stage.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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