Speaking in January 2013 Brendan Rodgers had a warning for Daniel Sturridge, newly arrived from Chelsea:
“He has got quality. If he wants to stay at this level, this is probably his last chance.”
Four years on and Rodgers’ initial assessment accurately describes the predicament Sturridge now finds himself. Older and more brittle, but still with an instinct for goals, he faces an uncertain future and a big summer.
In the eighteen months that followed the 2013 January transfer window Sturridge’s looked to be a player for whom scoring goals seemed entirely consuming and annoyingly easy. Every touch, every pass, every dribble calculated with the intention of getting Sturridge nearer to the scoresheet.
He reached 50 goals for the Merseyside team in just 87 games — faster than Suarez and Fowler — and looking back through them he shows an impressive repertoire. There are lobs, tap-ins, vicious drives from acute angles and distance, even the odd header. Whatever body shape or shot a situation required to beat the keeper Sturridge had it. Every club in the bag. His blood ran cold when through on goal, a contrast to raging fire of Luis Suarez during the 2013–14 season in which the two ran riot.
He scored 10 goals in the 14 games that remained of the 2012–13 season after. He added another 21 in the season that followed as he finished as the second highest goalscorer behind his Uruguayan team-mate. 35 goals in the first 49 games of his Liverpool career, and that was pretty much that. In the three seasons that have followed he’s added just 10 more to his total.
Since picking up a thigh injury while on international duty in September 2014 Sturridge has appeared in less than 50% of Liverpool’s games. He’s become a player defined more by his failing body then his success on the pitch. With Rodgers replaced by Klopp the scrutiny on Sturridge’s frame only increased, and his commitment to risking injury in the service of his club and country has been called into question. The German has used the striker sparingly, sometimes through choice and sometimes not. It’s clear that Klopp has little patience with Sturridge’s ailments, unwilling to countenance a player who puts himself and his health ahead of team success.
Sturridge now faces a summer of possibility and may well be sold by Liverpool as they look to strengthen a thin squad ahead of a return to the Champions League. If he stays on Merseyside it’s unlikely he will be anything more than an alternative to Liverpool’s attacking options. His pace has clearly diminished following repeated injuries and he has never embraced the intensity that his manager requires. Instead, he will sit on the bench, a more precise option should the Gegenpress whirlwind fail to blow the opponent’s house down. He’s shown that he’s still capable of excelling in a cameo role; physically he may have slowed but his finishing remains as sharp as ever, as shown in his occasional outings in the last couple of seasons.
If he hopes of regaining his place in the England squad he’ll need to play regularly and likely leave in order to do so. West Ham have already expressed an interest in signing the 27-year old and there will plenty of other clubs currently weighing up the pros and cons of signing a player who may not always be fit enough to appear in more than half of the season’s games.
Perhaps for Sturridge the answer lies further afield in a league with less intensity and a more accommodating schedule. The biggest factor will be the one most out of his control. Technically Sturridge is in his prime but his body may already be in decline. It has failed him repeatedly in the last few years. Unless he can reach some kind of physical consistency he risks falling into the category of sublimely talented strikers unable to coerce their body into doing justice to their ability. Alexandre Pato and Giuseppe Rossi are not bad contemporaries but Sturridge’s talent promised so much more.
