Daniel Sturridge may have taken to Twitter on Sunday to reveal that he’s now back to full fitness, but Jurgen Klopp has ruled the striker out of first-team action for the foreseeable future.
“This is absolutely the same thing that Daniel said four weeks ago,” said Klopp.
“We let him play and he was injured again. He says this, you ask him and he says he’s good. I know he is good. But he has to train. We cannot change the situation. He has to train now.
Perfect gift for Christmas from the boys getting a win. On a sidenote I'm back training and good to go!! #Lfc #redordead
— Daniel Sturridge (@DanielSturridge) December 26, 2015
“With him, last week and this week are most intensive weeks in training for Daniel Sturridge in the last three years. So now you can see what we have to do. We cannot say ‘Come on Daniel! Now you look good, so you can play!'”
Liverpool have just one fit striker for Wednesday’s trip to Sunderland after Divock Origi injured his hamstring in the 1-0 win over Leicester, leaving the goal-scoring burden on Christian Benteke.
But while there may be the temptation to include Sturridge in the squad, Klopp does not want a repeat of the forward making too hasty a return.
“I don’t want to see him (playing) in training. Everybody sees him training and they think “Oh, come on, bring him into the team, we need his quality!” But no. We really, really have to be patient now, we have to wait,” he said.
“We have to train, we have to give the body the right information, and if he can do this, then maybe we can change something.”
