Football
PA Sport 9y

Lille's Rene Girard dampens Divock Origi expectations for Everton clash

Lille boss Rene Girard has attempted to ease the pressure on Divock Origi ahead of Thursday's Europa League Group H clash with Everton.

The 19-year-old Belgium international has risen to prominence in 2014, shining for his country at the summer's World Cup and subsequently being signed from Lille by Liverpool.

Origi was immediately loaned back to the French outfit for the 2014-15 season, and has begun the campaign impressively, scoring four goals in all competitions for Les Dogues plus another for Belgium during the recent international break.

There is set to be considerable attention upon him when Lille host Liverpool's Merseyside rivals on Thursday, and speaking at his pregame news conference on Wednesday, Girard said: "It is a very complicated position, playing as a striker.

"Nowadays, lots of teams have a serial killer up front who is very clinical. Maybe we lack this player, although we do have a lot of qualities in attack.

"But we have very young players, so it is quite difficult to have some consistency, even for Divock Origi. He is still very young and we need to be patient.

"Let's not expect he is going to score 20 goals for us this season -- that would be difficult."

Girard, who stressed that recent talk Liverpool might be able to bring Origi back to play for them in January was "only rumours," also played down the notion the teenager may feel additional motivation for Thursday's game.

"He has not waited to face Everton in order to be motivated," Girard said. "Of course he will be motivated. But we have the Everton game, then we play Rennes on Sunday, and I would hope the motivation would be the same."

Origi himself has emphasised his thoughts are only with Lille for now, and also spoke about his international colleagues in the Everton camp -- Kevin Mirallas, who will miss the match due to a hamstring injury, and Romelu Lukaku.

"For the moment, I am thinking about Lille, not Liverpool," Origi said according to uefa.com.

Regarding Mirallas, he added: "We gently wound each other up [after the draw for Group H was made]. He told me they would come here and win. I replied that we won't let that happen. Kevin is a great guy who gave me his advice on English football.''

And on Lukaku, Origi said: "I admit I look up at him. I admire what he has done in English football so far."

Lille -- who will be without injured pair Marcos Lopes (on loan from Manchester City) and Jonathan Delaplace -- go into Thursday's game lying third in the group having taken two points from their first two matches.

Everton, top with four from two, will have over 5,000 of their supporters in attendance at the Stade Pierre Mauroy, and Girard has highlighted how important he feels the home supporters will be in what he very much hopes is a victory for his side.

"We will need the support of our fans, because the travelling English fans will be something impressive -- even though we disappointed our supporters with our last home game [a 2-1 Ligue 1 loss to Guingamp]," Girard said.

"I think it will be very important for us to regain the support of our fans by winning the game."

^ Back to Top ^