Daniel Sturridge was never really expected to make the Watford match, was he?
The Echo claim our star forward was due back this weekend, but after news broke that he’d pulled a hamstring versus Newcastle, it was surely unlikely that he’d feature before the New Year – based on his miserable injury record and the fact Jurgen Klopp recently spoke about developing him a specialised training regime to build his resistance, and he didn’t feature today as the players returned to training.
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The manager had given them Monday and Tuesday off, as they prepare for an intense run of games after Christmas. Mamadou Sakho featured and should replace Dejan Lovren at centre-back, but Sturridge didn’t participate at all.
In that case Klopp could either use Christian Benteke or Divock Origi as centre-forwards, or Roberto Firmino as a False-9 verses Watford on Sunday.
The Echo include a worrying statistic in their report: Since Luis Suarez left the club, Sturridge has only started 16 of our 83 matches. That’s 20%. We can’t continue to wait on a forward who’s only around once every five games, and desperately hope Klopp’s training ideas bear fruit. Let’s not rush him back. Nobody could deal with another lay-off.