In Origi's big league

Teams in the English Premier league have been shining their boots and players burning the fat accumulated over the summer, munching on barbecues while watching the World Cup. The transfer period is quite unfamiliar to many fans of English Premier League for a number of reasons. Firstly, another Kenyan has joined the big league by signing for Liverpool. Forget all that hullabaloo that Divock Origi is Belgian. That is all hogwash invented by the West to continue siphoning African talent and using them to their advantage. The guy is Luo! Period! He is as much Luo as Obama, Lupita or Oti, my carwash guy! If he was a homeless man in the streets, rather than a talented footballer, he would have been shipped here ages back. So as far as we are concerned, we have two Kenyans signed to top English clubs. If anyone contests this, we are happy to hold a referendum. Belgium has about a dozen million people and if they threatened a referendum, we would only unleash them a couple of counties in Kenya to defeat them in the vote, leaving the rest of Kenyans to pursue their daily hustles. While speaking to the media after the deal was concluded he said. "I know it's a club with a great history, great fans and a lot of great players. For me, Liverpool is one of the greatest clubs in the world and I'm very excited to be part of this great history." He is a sharp guy. He knows Liverpool is one of the greatest clubs. He does not say it is the greatest club. He knows such honours are set aside for Man United and Arsenal! While the teenager will have to wait at least a year before making his Liverpool debut, having been loaned back to Lille, he is already excited about the prospect of becoming a part of manager Brendan Rodgers' side. According to media reports, as a 16- and 17-year-old at regional youth league level, Origi blasted his way through opposition defences. Against weaker teams he could win games by being a flat-track bully because he was so much quicker and more powerful than his peers. Against better opposition, however, he would show there was a lot more to his game, producing flashes of technical mastery and moments of brilliant improvisation that reminded you he was a player of immense potential. For all the progress he was making at Lille, the moment that changed his career actually occurred some 400km away, at Aston Villa's training ground, on April 3 when Christian Benteke tore his Achilles tendon. It opened the way for Origi to be included in Belgium's World Cup squad. Origi was already well-known to coaches in the Belgium national team set-up because he had an excellent track record for his country at youth level. So observers were dispatched to Lille games, and when the reports came back good, Origi moved to the top of the shortlist to replace Benteke. At the World Cup Origi showed glimpses of the skills Liverpool fans will have to wait 12 months to see: that desire to get behind defences with or without the ball; his increasingly sharp penalty-box awareness, emphatically demonstrated by the way he checked his run before shooting first-time high into the net to secure Belgium's 1-0 group-phase victory over Russia; and, above all else, that sensational pace. At full speed, Origi resembles a 200m sprinter coming off the bend and turning on the turbo-chargers. There isn't a centre-back in the world smart to back to beat him in a one-on-one race. As they say the rest is history. Another reason the transfer period is a bit unfamiliar is because the traditional powerhouses that burn money in frenzied transfer spending as if the end is nigh have been quite quiet. Going by conservative estimates, Manchester City, Man United and Chelsea will by now have signed four or five players each. But these clubs have been quiet in the market almost to the point of being dumb. At this point in time we are used to Chelsea's Jose Mourinho spewing garbage about how he has three or four players for each position. But he has been mum as well. Apart from that time he attempted to claim that Cesc Fàbregas choose Chelsea over Arsenal. Fàbregas would never do that. He was actually hoping to come back to Arsenal but the Gunners were no longer interested in him seeing that there is already a deluge of attacking midfielders in the squad. What Arsenal now needs is a combative defensive midfielder and that is why they have been linked with an array of spectacular defensive midfield players from Southampton to Real Madrid. Of course the arrogant Louis van Gaal has also taken over at Manchester United and wasted little time ruffling feathers. To start with, he claimed Man United's training ground was too windy. In his opinion this was not good for the team. Pray how did Alex Ferguson and the other manager who came (I forget his name) did not notice the wind blowing away Man United chances of playing in the Champions League leave alone winning the title? As for the annoying Portuguese, he has concentrated in signing players with Arsenal in mind. Firstly, he rushed and signed Fàbregas even before the World Cup so that he could sit back and hurl abuses at Arsenal on how he signed the former Gunners skipper. He forgets that Arsenal sells their captain almost every year. Secondly, he re-signs Didier Drogba, perhaps for no other reason other than that, Drogba always scores against Arsenal. Tell me is that really a manager with a game plan to win the EPL?