Liverpool vs Barcelona: Divock Origi seizes opportunity to inject life into Reds season once again

Try to pick out Liverpool’s most impressive player last night. How about Fabinho, a snarling midfield presence biting at ankles and snapping at heels? Or captain Jordan Henderson, forever forcing his team-mates onto the front foot. Alisson was faultless. Sadio Mané was often sublime. Joel Matip’s interventions were applauded by team-mates on several occasions. Trent Alexander-Arnold is 20-years-old and yet had the presence of mind to play that corner.

Picking a man-of-the-match was a futile task. This was that precious rarity in football: a complete team performance. But naturally, there was a name chanted more than others in one Seel Street bar over and over again in the early hours of Wednesday morning, always to the tune of Whigfield’s Saturday Night. It is normal for the scorer of the match-winning goal to get the majority of attention following a historic victory. It is not normal for that player to be Divock Origi.

Or is it? After all, Liverpool’s decisive fourth was not Origi’s first important goal of this week, let alone the season. Without his contributions at St James’ Park on Saturday and at Anfield last night, Jurgen Klopp’s side would be all but sure of finishing a spectacular season with nothing to show for their efforts. Instead, they are potentially two games away from a league and European double and a place in English football’s pantheon.

The goal did, however, strengthen his case to be remembered as one of those special, often-unheralded players who have swung their club’s season with either one big moment or a series of them. Think David Fairclough in 1977 or Howard Gayle in 1981. Think Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in 1999 or Federico Macheda a decade later. One mark of a great side is a member of its supporting cast coming to the fore.

Origi was expected to leave Anfield last summer and suggestions that Liverpool expected a fee of around £26m were roundly derided. This was a striker who, since joining under Brendan Rodgers in the summer of 2014, had scored just 21 goals in those four years. While on loan at at a poor Wolfsburg outfit last season, he managed only seven in 36 appearances. His time at Anfield appeared to be up.

What changed? Jordan Pickford dropping the ball into his path in final moments of the 232nd Merseyside derby helped, no doubt. That goal, which maintained a mounting run of Premier League form, helped dissuade Liverpool from putting Origi back on the market when the transfer window re-opened a month later in January. Without it, he may well not have been around to play his part against Barcelona.

But the single greatest strength that Origi has demonstrated over the past weeks and months is an awareness of when and where an opportunity might arise, then ruthlessly taking that chance. That may mean pouncing on a ball which falls favourably inside the penalty area. It may also mean working hard to prove his worth when a lack of cover for first-choice striker Roberto Firmino emerges.

Since last summer, Origi has seen Danny Ings and Dominic Solanke depart. He has comfortably risen above Daniel Sturridge in Klopp’s pecking order too. The Belgian has done that by having a better goals-per-90-minute record than any of his team-mates. Only full-backs Andrew Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold rival him in the assists-per-90-minute stakes. Only Mohamed Salah manages to take more shots at goal when on the pitch. Origi, in short, is now one of Klopp’s most effective attacking players.

Not that he would admit it himself. Even after being the one person in Anfield alive to Alexander-Arnold’s quick corner for the decisive fourth goal, he was insisting that the focus should be on the collective performance rather than his own.

“I think it was more about the team,” he said. “We wanted to also fight for the injured players.” The same injured players who, more often than not, keep him out of the starting line-up.

And though he was right to return attentions to one of the greatest all-round displays that Anfield has ever witnessed, this was still another game which saw a once-unfancied frontman have the final, telling say. For the third time this season, Origi earned Liverpool a vital victory. Should he do the same in Madrid, they will be singing his name down Seel Street for years to come.