ORIGINAL SUPERSUB
Klopp joy as Divock hits late, late winner. No wonder he’s the...
LIVERPOOL have the best forward line in club football, even without Roberto Firmino, so it seems rather unfair that they should have the best supersub to dig them out of trouble on the rare occasions they need him, too. Divock Origi, a cult hero at Anfield, does not get many chances to play for Jurgen Klopp’s side but, when he does, he has made a habit of shining as brightly as a shooting star.
Origi, the greatest supersub since David Fairclough trod the turf for Liverpool in the Seventies and Eighties, acts as the habitual understudy to Mo Salah, Sadio Mane, Firmino and Diogo Jota, but he has scored critical late goals in the Merseyside derby, Liverpool’s astonishing Champions League semi-final comeback against Barcelona and the final, against Spurs. He veers from being the man that time forgot to the man of the hour. Yesterday, brought on as a second-half substitute for Jordan Henderson, he did it again.
For 94 minutes of an increasingly fractious game, Wolves had withstood everything that Liverpool could throw at them. Conor Coady was inspirational at the heart of the home defence, played for most of the game with his ankle heavily strapped and made a miraculous and bizarre goal-line clearance from Jota when goalkeeper Jose Sa was stranded in no man’s land. And still he lost.
Liverpool had been denied time after time by a combination of their own profligacy and Wolves’ obstinacy but, with the game deep in injury time, they produced a move of such quality that even the stingy Wolves defence, which had only conceded 12 goals all season, could not prevent Origi from scoring and sending Liverpool to the top of the Premier League until they were supplanted a couple of hours later by Manchester City.
The move started with a brilliant, diagonal ball out of defence from Virgil van Dijk, who hit his pass flat and long into the path of Salah on the right. Salah took the ball in his stride at full pelt and pulled it back from the byline to Origi, who was lurking in the six-yard box. The Belgium forward took a touch, span to face goal and lashed his shot past Sa. Klopp was effusive in his praise for Origi’s character and skill. ‘I hope one day he finds a manager who plays him more than me,’ he said.
Liverpool deserved the win for their pressure, Wolves deserved a point for their defiance but when the goal went in, the scale of the celebrations on the Liverpool bench made it clear how important they believed this victory was. There is a realisation at Anfield that they have to garner every point they can before Salah and Mane head to the Africa Cup of Nations next month and deplete their side.
Salah has more goals and more assists than anyone in the league but he was not given the same freedom accorded him last week when he ran riot against Everton. Liverpool had not failed to score in an away fixture since a league defeat at Southampton on January 4 but they came mighty close to ending that run here. It did bring an end to a sequence of scoring at least two goals in their last 18 matches.
The first chance of any note came after half an hour when Wolves half-cleared a ball to the edge of their own area. Thiago Alcantara was waiting for it as it dropped and he lobbed a cushioned volley into the path of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who took it first time and tried to volley it past Sa but saw it go over the bar.
Two minutes later, Liverpool came close again. This time, after clever work form Salah on the edge of the box, Alexander-Arnold drifted a cross to the back post. Jota rose above his marker but steered his header just wide.
Liverpool piled on the pressure now. Seven minutes before half-time, Jota slipped a clever pass in behind the Wolves defence for Andrew Robertson on the left and he drilled the ball across the face of goal and it seemed inevitable that either Mane or Salah would get the finishing touch. Somehow, partly due to desperate attempts by Roman Saiss and Coady, the ball eluded them both. Coady hurt his ankle in the incident and required lengthy treatment. He spent the rest of the match limping heavily. Adama Traore caused a brief moment of alarm in the Liverpool defence at the start of the second half when he stole the ball from Van Dijk in the Liverpool box but he could not find either a team-mate nor a finish to beat Alisson.
When Wolves failed to clear a corner, Alexander-Arnold lofted a high, swirling cross to the back post where Salah volleyed it back across goal. Thiago’s first prod at it cannoned back to him
off Raul Jimenez and, when the ricochet in turn ricocheted off Thiago, it was saved by Sa.
An hour had gone when Jota and Saiss gave chase to a long ball over the top of the Wolves defence. Saiss got ahead but as he was about to clear the ball, he collided with Sa, who had rushed out of his goal.
The ball fell to Jota near the right touchline and he raced towards goal with Sa stranded. Coady and Max Kilman retreated to the goalline but, as Jota got closer and closer, it seemed he was bound to score.
When he was a few yards out, Jota lashed the ball towards the net but it hit Coady and bounced to safety. Coady was pole-axed, Jota was horrified and the crowd was exultant. No one could quite believe what had happened.
The tackling and the sense of resentment it fed raised the temperature of the game and propelled Wolves deeper into the contest. Then the ball fell to Origi and all Coady’s defiance was in vain.