Divock Origi, who finally arrived at Liverpool this summer following a year on loan with Lille, is in a great position to analyse £32.5m man Christian Benteke – who he plays with the for the Belgium national team.
And the younger of the Belgian striking pair has spoken of his delight at his international team-mate’s arrival at Anfield.
“He’s a wonderful signing, I think,” he said, reported in the Echo.
“I know him from the Belgian national team, he has a lot of ability, a lot of qualities.
“I’m happy for him and also for us that he’s part of the team.
“I’m always happy to play with good players, especially Christian.”
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“I think everybody knows his strengths. He’s very strong, very big, good in the air, he has good feet, he can score.
“He’s the modern striker and it’s a very good signing.”
Interestingly, Benteke’s transfer will likely limit Origi’s playing time on first glance. The 20-year-old now has to compete with our second most expensive ever signing, Danny Ings and an eventually fit Daniel Sturridge (and possibly even Mario Balotelli) for a starting spot – if as expected – we use the 4-3-3 at the start of the season.
Former Red Didi Hamann similarly reckons that Benteke will be an Anfield hit.
“He showed that he more or less single handedly kept Aston Villa in the league last season. I’m very excited to see him, I think he could be the final piece in the jigsaw because the problem for Liverpool last season is they didn’t score enough goals,” said the ex-Germany international.
“Hopefully with him, with the arrival of (Divock) Origi and also Danny Ings I think we’ve got the firepower now to challenge for the top-four position, and not to forget Daniel Sturridge who will hopefully be back at some stage, so I think that’s been the problem last season, not scoring enough goals.”
Benteke, and to a lesser extent Origi, has been charged with fixing our goal problem, and it will be by this metric that his success is measured.
The powerhouse will make his friendly debut versus HJK in a week’s time, and hopefully he can find his shooting boots before the opener against Stoke eight days later.