Brendan Rodgers has continued to heap praise on the returned Daniel Sturridge after the weekend brace versus Aston Villa.
Both the manager and the club badly needed a result at Anfield on Saturday, and thanks to the striker’s two wonderful finishes, we earned one.
It’s almost like the football world forgot how good Sturridge is, who following the two-goal salvo, now has a better goals to game ratio than any Liverpool striker in Premier League history.
“Players like that make the difference. We haven’t scored three goals since he last started a game,” Rodgers told the official website.
“He gives you a big opportunity to win games and compete at the top end of the table.
“He is a fantastic talent and now the job is hopefully he can stay fit.”
“He is in that elite band of player that we’ve seen here,” continued the Northern Irishman. “We’ve seen here the brand of football we can create when we have that talent available.
“He played a massive part in that, so if he stays fit and others come into the reckoning we can piece together an exciting team again.
“Those players make the difference.”
Rodgers is right, in short. Sturridge does have the ability to win us the kind of matches we’ve been drawing or losing over the past 12 months.
He’s rapid, skilful and a terrific finisher. What more could you want from a centre-forward?
But it would be wrong to throw all our eggs in the Sturridge basket due to his injury record, although we’re all crossing our fingers for a prolonged period of goals and fitness.
If one of Danny Ings or Christian Benteke (or a fit Roberto Firmino) can support him ably, we’ve a chance of top four due to the inconsistency of our rivals.