Daniel Sturridge could feature for Liverpool at Leicester City on Saturday despite not being selected for the trip to the King Power Stadium in the Carabao Cup.
Jürgen Klopp insists the striker is still an important part of his plans and that a pre-season chat between the pair centred only on Sturridge’s role at the club and not his desire to play elsewhere. “We had a good talk and it was not a case of him asking when or where he could go. It was about what we planned for this season,” Klopp said.
“He is important to us and I could have taken him to Leicester in midweek but I can only select 11 players and Daniel would not have started. So we took a responsible decision. Rather than take him for 10 or maybe 20 minutes from the bench, we thought it was better to leave him behind so he could train twice and get better physically. We had Dom Solanke and Danny Ings for the bench and the more Daniel trains the better he gets, so that was the only reason for it.”
Sturridge is making his way back to full fitness after injury, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain appears to be struggling to adapt to Liverpool’s demands following his move from Arsenal and was unconvincing in his first start for his new club at Leicester, whereas Mohamed Salah has slotted straight in and has scored three league goals already. According to Klopp there is no big secret: the Egyptian was able to hit the ground running thanks to arriving so early in the transfer window.
“You should never take things like this for granted but I’m not surprised by how quickly he has adapted,” Klopp said. “He had a whole pre-season, so it is not as if he has had to settle in in a minute, which is what people are now expecting of Ox. He has been working with us for many weeks, so it’s no problem for him.
“You cannot say he was cheap at £38m but he’s a very good player, one we were always convinced about. You could see his potential in his first game at Watford. It was really physical and maybe a few people had doubts but he played better than anyone could have imagined. He was a kid when he was at Chelsea. Now he is more mature and everything is better.”