One of the more surprising Liverpool related transfer stories that came out over the last week was a report from Spain which suggested that Barcelona could be interested in signing Divock Origi from Liverpool in January.
Barca’s struggles this season have been apparent for all to see, and it does make sense that they’d be in the market for a new centre-forward but it was somewhat of a shock to see Origi, who is struggling to get any game time at Liverpool, linked with a move to the Camp Nou.
To get more information on this story, we spoke to Neil Jones of Goal on our Journo Insight Extra show and asked if he’d heard anything at all about the Belgian star making a move to Spain.
Here’s what he had to say:
“No name is off-limits for Barcelona at the moment, Luke De Jong has opened the floodgates for everyone but I’d be amazed if Liverpool let Divock go in January given the AFCON [is taking place] and that he’s shown in recent weeks that he can do a job here and there. They didn’t sell him in the summer as there was a lack of interest.”
“To answer the question, I don’t see Barcelona buying Divock Origi in January or beyond, if I’m honest”
Redmen Reacts
The point about the AFCON which Neil made is an excellent one. Liverpool will lose Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane for games in January, so it’s more than likely that Origi will be needed to play meaningful games at some point after Christmas.
If either of those two players were to return early from AFCON duty, then it might be possible for The Reds to cash in on Origi if a team such as Barcelona, or any other, came in with a decent bid at the end of January.
However, that seems very unlikely at this stage and we agree with Neil that all signs are pointing towards Origi staying for the entire season, with a transfer in the summer looking like the most obvious conclusion to this whole story.
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