Divock Origi has put pen to paper on a contract extension with Liverpool, ending any speculation that he could be leaving the club this summer.

The Belgian has had quite the rollercoaster ride in terms of his Liverpool career. He’s reached some incredible highs, but he’s also faced some incredible lows and after the news was announced about the Belgian’s new contract, his manager, Jurgen Klopp told the official LFC website the steps that were taken to build Origi back up after he had a few major setbacks, starting with the serious injury he suffered against Everton.

I never forgot the situation in the Everton game [in April 2016], to be honest, when there was that harsh tackle and a red card for [Ramiro] 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.

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Klopp then spoke about the decision to send Origi out on loan, a move which ultimately ended up being a disappointment, and then the Belgian considering leaving the club permanently.

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.

Origi had the chance to leave Liverpool in the summer, but he chose to stay and fight for a place in the side and Klopp explained how the Belgian star’s performances in training got him back in the first-team mix by moving him to the wing.

He grew and grew and grew, in training sessions you could see it: ‘Wow!’ [We were] then not sure about [playing him in] 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.

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The manager then explained how he saw enough from Origi to consider playing him as a number nine once again.

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.

The work certainly paid off for both the club and the player, who scored some of the biggest goals in Liverpool’s history less than a year after rejecting a move away from the club.


Every angle of Divock Origi's Champion's League final goal