England boss Roy Hodgson on Daniel Sturridge – ‘His injuries aren’t all my fault’

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Is Roy Hodgson to blame for Daniel Sturridge’s injury issues, he doesn’t think so…

England manager Roy Hodgson has never been the most popular man in the red half of Merseyside, dating back to his short-lived and unsuccessful spell as Liverpool boss in 2010.

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Reds supporters are therefore unlikely to be impressed with his latest comments on Daniel Sturridge, claiming that he has been unfairly criticised for causing the striker’s five-month injury lay-off.

The 25-year-old strained his thigh while training with the Three Lions back in September, but will be back in Hodgson’s squad next month as England face a Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania and a friendly with Italy.

At the time Brendan Rodgers claimed that he was ‘disappointed’ with the decision to allow Sturridge to train, despite him needing an extra day of recovery before arriving in the England camp.

The incident started a war of words between the pair, while the striker was subsequently struck down by further problems as he attempted to make his recovery – with the issues eventually keeping him out until January.

Hodgson, who was quoted by the Daily Mail, said; “No we don’t. That’s another myth,” when asked whether he considered the England set-up worthy of any blame.

“We also like to give players a second-day recovery when we can. But it’s much less obvious that we can do that because of the shortage of time we get between games.

“Of course if you have a week between games you can give two days off, you can give three days off if you want. We can’t. But that’s not a particular thing.

“It was unfortunate that Daniel got injured as he did and we were sad about that but he’s had a few injuries since then and I haven’t seen too many people writing about that.

“The other three muscles injuries he’s picked up? Are they due to England and the way we work? I don’t think so. It’s just one of those things.

“If I hear he’s having a special programme and needs to do certain things, we’ll take it into consideration. Of course we will.

“If he’s got a special programme our medical people will know that because they’re in contact with the Liverpool medical people.”

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