For Divock Origi, this past year has been a season of extremes. After being named in Ligue 1’s worst team of the season by L’Equipe when on loan at Lille, the Belgian striker finally made his £10m move to Liverpool. He didn’t score until December but finally broke his duck for the club with a hat-trick against Southampton. Two tie-winning performances against Borussia Dortmund and some notable running ‘into the channels’ convinced Mark Wilmots to take him to Euro 2016, even after the 21-year-old sustained an ankle ligament injury.
Raw, injury-prone, lightning quick, selfless, lacking in confidence but instinctive, Origi has left the Mill wondering if he is any good. But more important football establishments like Atlético Madrid think he is, and having had Antoine Griezmann, Fernando Torres, Sergio Agüero, Radamel Falcao, Diego Costa, Diego Forlan, David Villa up top in recent years, the Mill is willing to give Divock the benefit of the doubt. Atlético also have eyes on a return for Costa, but Diego Simeone is a big fan of Origi, who now has the chance to decide between playing for one of the world’s most excitable managers in the Champions League or for one of the world’s most excitable managers in the EFL Cup.
Jürgen Klopp could use some of the money from any Origi sale to fund his interest in Internazionale’s Gary Medel and Marcelo Brozovic – the latter catching the eye for Croatia at Euro 2016 alongside Ivan Rakitic and Luka Modric in midfield. Arsenal and Atlético are also said to be keeping a beady eye on the 23-year-old though. Sky Italia are also convinced Liverpool are about to drop €30m on Real Madrid’s bench warmer Mateo Kovacic. Quite how his value has increased at the Bernabéu remains a mystery.
Inter’s manager Roberto Mancini is planning a spending spree of his own, starting with Literature’s Juan Mata, who everybody knows has a wand of a left foot, excellent diction in his weekly post-match blogposts, but crucially can’t run so good, which isn’t José Mourinho’s idea of fun. You might remember that, after Mata was voted Chelsea player of the year for the second year running in 2013, Mourinho refused to play him and sold him the following January. One suspects this might be the case again at Old Trafford, especially now that Henrikh Mkhitaryan is bopping about.
In the latest episode of Arsenal Need a Striker, Arsène Wenger will meet Mauro Icardi and his wife/agent Wanda Nara later today, throw £33.6m in the direction of Inter, and hope that it sticks. The Italian club are likely to hold out for closer to £42m for their club captain, who scored 16 times in 29 league appearances last season, and would command a cool £5m in wages this season, should he sign for the Gunners.
Much like a rare Pokemon, Everton hope to confirm the £2m ‘capture’ of Steve Walsh from Leicester City later on Wednesday and will promote him from head of recruitment to director of football, which is essentially the same thing, but sounds a bit fancier. Why didn’t Claudio Ranieri have that idea?
Sunderland have become so frustrated at their inactivity this summer that they have resorted to meeting Micah Richards’s £5m release clause. Yep, that Micah Richards. Five million pounds. Quite the (potentially) parting gift from Big Sam.
