2016/17 Season Report Card: Daniel Sturridge

It was a weird season for Daniel Sturridge. He missed half of it through various injuries, but that wasn’t the weird part as that’s par for the course these days. What was odd was that when he was fit he wasn’t always that good. That's unusual. 
 
For the first part of the season he was mostly a sub because the front three were doing so well. He got starts in the League Cup and looked good, scoring twice at Burton and then hitting two against Spurs at Anfield. 
 
So he looked sharp enough, but with Roberto Firmino tearing it up in the middle there was no room in the starting line up for Sturridge. He did start at Burnley, on the right wing, and was crap, but it's hard to be too critical of that as it was a bizarre tactical move by Klopp.
 
An injury to Philippe Coutinho eventually opened up a spot in the front three, but hey guess what? Sturridge was injured and missed the boat. I know, I was shocked too.
 
Divock Origi took advantage of that and had his best run of the season, scoring in five games on the bounce before drawing a blank in the Goodison derby. 
 
Sturridge came off the bench in that game to play a key part in the winning goal, his shot striking the post and being followed up by Sadio Mané. He came off the bench to score against Stoke on Boxing Day, didn’t get on in the win over City on New Year’s Eve but then started at Sunderland. 
 
He scored and was our best player that day. With Mané leaving for AFCON the stage was set for Sturridge to step into the breach and ensure we didn’t miss Mané but he failed abysmally. 
 
Jurgen Klopp thought we could beat Plymouth without him so left him on the bench for the FA Cup tie at Anfield. He was forced to bring him on in the second half but it made little difference and we had to have a replay. Sturridge started the replay and was woeful.
 
In between those games we lost at Southampton and he was crap in that game too (along with everyone else other than Loris Karius). 
 
He was back on the bench for the home defeat to Swansea, started the second leg defeat against Southampton and then came on as a sub in the FA Cup defeat to Wolves and also in the abysmal defeat at Hull. 
 
This was a season ruining spell for the team and the lack of production from Sturridge was a significant factor in it. When we needed him to step up he didn’t do it. That Hull game was on Feb 4th, and we didn’t see him again until April 8th. I don’t even recall what the injury was, I do remember that it was initially only seen as a minor problem that wouldn’t keep him out for long. 
 
Two months later…. 
 
He was back to cameo roles off the bench, coming on against Stoke and West Brom. He missed the defeat to Palace after crying off on the morning of the game with some mystery ailment. Serious enough to prevent him from not being able to manage 20 minutes off the bench on the Sunday, but not serious enough to stop him returning to training two days later. Hmmmm. 
 
Klopp either didn’t feel he was fit to start or he was just fed up with the entire situation, but we were struggling for goals and a top four spot looked to be slipping away after we were held to a goalless draw at home to Southampton. 
 
So Sturridge was brought in from the cold at West Ham and responded with the opening goal and a quality performance. He started against Boro in the final game of the season and although he didn’t score, he played his part in the victory. 
 
So in summary, he was generally ok when he played except when we really needed him to deliver. The problem, as ever, is he just missed far too many games and is too unreliable. 
 
Best Moment:
 
The West Ham goal was the most significant moment of the season but my favourite Sturridge moment was the back heel assist to Mané in the rout over Watford. 
 
Worst Moment:
 
His performance at Plymouth was abysmal. 
 
Rating:
 
5/10. And that’s probably generous given how many games he missed and how ineffective he was while Mané was away. 
 
The Future? 
 
Who knows. This is a complex situation. I’d say there are almost certainly people at the club that would like to cash in on him if possible. Maybe Klopp is one of them, although I suspect he’d prefer to keep him as long as it didn’t prevent him adding the other players he needs. 
 
Hypothetically though, if someone were to offer £30m for him, could you imagine the club turning that down? It’s not just the transfer fee, it’s the opportunity to rid themselves of his 150k a week salary. Personally I’d rather keep him and just use him when he’s fit because he’s top class, but it’s difficult to argue against those who would rather sell. 
 
Where it gets complicated is that Sturridge genuinely doesn’t seem to be interested in leaving. He might fancy a move to another Champions League club, but it’s hard to imagine him joining a West Ham or Southampton, and that’s the level of club that would probably want him given his injury history. 
 
Sturridge isn’t the type to demand to play every week, we know that because he’s used to not playing for one reason or another. So he won’t leave for ‘regular football’ and he won’t leave just because we might sign another striker or two. He knows how good he is and will back himself to force his way into the team when fit because there are few strikers who can do what he does. 
 
So I’d expect him to still be here when the season starts but I’m not really arsed either way.