Home   >   News   >   Klopp seeks answers to Sturridge’s fitness woes

Klopp seeks answers to Sturridge’s fitness woes

By on January 29, 2016

Sturridge had an explosive season at a new club, excelling alongside his striking partner. Then injuries begin to plague him and the Englishman’s right-hand-man up front left the club. A year later, the fireworks from their one great season together were nothing but ashes. This has been Daniel Sturridge’s story at Liverpool so far; however, it is not unique. Indeed, it has all happened before at a different club, with another goalscoring partner and in fact, a different Sturridge.

It was the 1995/96 season at Stoke City in England’s second tier of football. Simon Sturridge, Daniel’s uncle, began a run of fine form. He was quick and versatile with an excellent touch and eye for goal. Between Sturridge and his forward partner Mike Sheron, a former Manchester City and Norwich City player who carved a successful career in England, the goals began to accumulate. That season, the pair shared a combined twenty-nine goals to light up the second vision.

Yet that Sturridge suffered a serious injury at the start of the 1996/1997 season and only made a fleeting total of five appearances that season. Sheron left the club the following summer.

The same story is playing out at Liverpool right now with Daniel Sturridge. He formed a fantastic bond with Luis Suarez in the 2012/2013 season and their combined stats were phenomenal. Sturridge’s scoring rate at Anfield is just below Suarez’s and higher than that of Liverpool legends such as Kenny Dalglish, Michael Owen, Kevin Keegan, John Toshack, and (oh my) Emile Heskey.

The pair carried this form into the 2013/2014 season, although Suarez bore more of the weight given multiple niggling injuries to Sturridge throughout the campaign. Then Suarez famously left to join Messi and Neymar at Barcelona in the summer of 2014, leaving Liverpool to try to build their attacking force around Sturridge.

At the beginning of last season, however, Sturridge strained his thigh muscle, sidelining him for the first month of the season, and then suffered a hamstring injury in November, followed by a hip injury in April. Liverpool were willing to wait for him to recover simply due to the potential he demonstated in the 2012/2013 season.

Yet this past October, he injured his knee barely a month after his reintroduction into the team and has now been out for the past month with another hamstring injury. Liverpool have been waiting and waiting for him to return to match fitness, but finally, Jürgen Klopp has bitten the bullet and admitted he is unsure when Sturridge will play again.

“He is still working,” said Klopp, per The Guardian. “Sometimes it is better, sometimes it is a bit worse because of other issues. That is all. He has done a lot of sessions in the last few weeks but it is always interrupted with a few breaks. He needs consistency in the sessions and that’s what we try to do. His injury history means this is normal. It is not coincidence.

“Some things are not right if you are injured that often. We have to be really sensitive with all the information we get. He could do a lot of sessions in the last few weeks but, like I said, they have always been interrupted with a few different issues where we always have to see and wait on what happens. That is how it is.

“There is no doubt that he is a very, very good player but at this moment he is not available so we don’t have to talk too much about him. He is not here. He cannot play tomorrow for sure, not against Leicester (in the Premier League next Tuesday) and I don’t know what happens after Leicester to be honest.”

It doesn’t appear to be an issue regarding Sturridge’s character, although some have their doubts, and the mental strain of spending two years sidelined is surely almost as formidable as the physical toll it takes.

Clearly, though, there is an underlying issue regarding Sturridge’s fitness and perhaps it’s simply hereditary. Along with Simon, Daniel’s other uncle Dean’s professional football career was also cut short due to reoccurring injuries. In the past, Daniel has acknowledged that his injury woes may simply be chronic and has flown to the United States multiple times over the last few seasons to attempt to crack down upon the issue. In the short term, the end to his injury woes are not in sight.

Liverpool should be comfortable waiting out his contract to see if there might be any light in the tunnel ahead. It’s not as if any club will be willing to assume the risk to fork out millions of pounds for him after two injury plagued seasons. Yet if his uncle’s stories are anything to go by, this Sturridge might be facing an uphill battle.

Photo credit: Kevin Walsh, via Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.