Liverpool fans will have been a little upset to see Patson Daka absolutely rip the Europa League a new one earlier this week.
The Leicester City hitman was linked with a move to Liverpool prior to joining Brendan Rodgers’s side.
And on Wednesday night, he scored all four goals as the Foxes won 4-3 away to Spartak Moscow.
Even if it isn’t Europe’s premier competition, scoring four in the Europa League is one hell of an achievement and at 23 years old, he’s going to get a lot better.
The depressing thing for Liverpool is that they might have signed him if not for Divock Origi.
Back in September, Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano revealed that Jurgen Klopp would go after Daka – then at Salzburg – if he could offload Xherdan Shaqiri and Origi.
Shaqiri’s move to Lyon meant that only the Belgian striker remained as an obstacle, but he wound up staying at Anfield and unsurprisingly, there was no attempt for Daka.
Romano said to his Here We Go podcast on September 8: “If they sold Shaqiri or Origi in the first days of June then they had a chance to sign Patson Daka because they were interested in him.
“They never made an official bid but they had interest in this striker from Salzburg.”
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Even worse, Origi barely even qualifies as a squad player.
Since the start of last season, the former Lille marksman has only managed 183 minutes of Premier League football – the equivalent of two full matches.
In other words, he could hardly be less important for Klopp and the fact that Liverpool missed out on an unreal signing like Daka because of him must be a bitter pill to swallow.
The Merseysiders deserve some blame for failing to shift him but, then again, Origi has to be held accountable too.
This is a player who has scored in a Champions League final, meaning that even if he’s struggling for regular games, he could easily find a new club if he was as determined to leave as Liverpool were to offload him.
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