Jurgen Klopp has revealed the moment he thought 'wow' when looking at Divock Origi's comeback at Liverpool and the reason why the club had to give the striker a new contract.
The Belgian frontman put pen to paper on fresh terms with the Reds on Wednesday to commit his future to the club.
The Reds boss explained why this was a win-win situation for both the player and the club before highlighting Origi's incredible progress in training and in matches after coming back from loan at Wolfsburg in the previous season.
“I really think it’s a win-win situation. It’s a story really only football can write,” Klopp told the club's official website.
“I never forgot the situation in the Everton game [in 2016], to be honest, when there was that harsh tackle and a red card for Funes Mori. Divock was in the best shape of his life and everybody was so positive about his future, and then things like this happen in football.
“We always know something like this can happen but when you see it and see the influence it has on a career, it’s just a sad story because he struggled really long with the ankle and stuff like that [and when] he came back the team was flying pretty much.
“It was not easy to come in and he couldn’t gain confidence and stuff like that. Going on loan to Wolfsburg, it didn't really work out there, coming back, thinking about leaving and then the season starts and yeah, it’s not a miracle, but it’s the nice part of the story then.
“He grew and grew and grew, in training sessions you could see it: ‘Wow!’ It was then not sure about the centre so he played a couple of games on the left wing. He did well there, it’s obviously not his natural position but he can play it in a specific way, in a very offensive way.
“Then in training again, you saw ‘OK, now he is ready again for No.9’ and he did that and scored the goals. That helped obviously, he scored unbelievably important goals and here we are.
“We wanted to sign him again, to extend the contract, and the nice thing is he wanted to as well. He realised it was a tough time [but] we never gave him up in that time, [we never said] ‘OK, that will never work again’, but sometimes in football you don’t have enough time.
“Thankfully we had enough time that we could kind of wait until he is ready again. Now he is this wonderful player again so it’s great to have him and I’m really, really happy about the signing.”
