Daniel Sturridge

[Bernardicus]

He's on course to do it in 65 games. Big ask but it would be nice to get Torres off the record books...

[Fosterbloke]

A hattrick today would be a good start! What's he on at the moment (Games/Goals)?

[ChesterDave]

17 in 22 league games and 20 in 26 overall - assuming wiki is up to date

[Exiled_red]

I just want to say how good his goal was today, if it weren't for Suarez scoring a hat-trick we'd all be talking about it.

[RichC]

It was great wasn't it plus the screamer that hit the bar.

£12m, what a steal

[Assassin]

I just want to say how good his goal was today, if it weren't for Suarez scoring a hat-trick we'd all be talking about it.

Great goal. Can't help thinking Bodgson has ****ed him up a little, he hasn't been at the same level since he was in the ingerlund squad

[Shaggy]

Crap today overall but still had a couple of great moments and of course scored a wonderful goal. Not bad on off day

[Assassin]

That curling drive that hit rattled that crossbar with next to no backlift was very impressive. It deserved to be a goal

[Slinky Skills]

His movement and that finish today reminded me of John Barnes, it was a stunning goal and perfectly executed too.

[Bender]

Daniel Sturridge has praised the role of top sports psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters in the flying start he's made to his Liverpool FC career.

The £12million striker netted a stunning lob in Saturday's 4-1 thrashing of West Brom – his 21 goal in just 27 appearances for the Reds.

Peters, who is credited by cyclists Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton as the man behind their Olympic triumphs, has worked at Melwood for the past 12 months.

“Steve has helped a lot in terms of mindset,” Sturridge said.

“He’s all about self-belief: don’t go out there with the mentality of trying to do something, just let it happen.



“I saw Didier (Drogba) in Miami this summer. He said the strongest thing an individual footballer can have is the mental. It’s not about the tactical, it’s not about the technical, it’s not about the physical. If you believe in yourself, that will set you apart.”

Peters recently asked Sturridge to mark his Anfield career so far out of 10. The bad news for top flight defenders is that the 24-year-old insists his best is yet to come.

He said: “Steve told me to say high but I’ve never been one to be comfortable. I’m uncomfortable getting comfortable.

“I think, for my capacity as a footballer, I’d say a seven out of 10. Probably even six — I’m being kind to myself saying a seven. I can do a lot better than I’m doing now.”

Sturridge has always been his own harshest critic but a change of mindset, coupled with the faith shown in him by Reds boss Brendan Rodgers, has enabled him to flourish.

“I usually dwell on the bad points but I’ve learnt to appreciate the good,” he said. “My dad’s been surprised. I’ve been a certain way since I was seven — hard on myself and I hate losing.
link

[McDermotX]

“People in the street know the game. Even the Everton fans, I haven’t had any abuse off them..... until I score against them in the derby!”

Gotta love that confidence.....

[marcus50bucks]

Setting new goals

Daniel Sturridge can’t stop scoring but still isn’t satisfied with his career as it stands thus far in the Premier League

Jonathan Northcroft Published: 27 October 2013

Steve Peters, the renowned psychiatrist who works with Liverpool, asked the very same question. What mark would Daniel Sturridge award his Anfield career so far?

“Steve told me to say high but I’ve never been one to be comfortable. I’m uncomfortable getting comfortable,” Sturridge smiles. “I think, for my capacity as a footballer, I’d say a seven out of 10. Probably even six — I’m being kind to myself saying a seven. I can do a lot better than I’m doing now.”

Six-out-of-10 when you’re the leading Premier League scorer of 2013? The fastest player since 1915 to reach 20 goals for Liverpool, beating Michael Owen and Fernando Torres, feels he should do 66% better. That’s Sturridge. “I think I’ve always been driven for success,” he says.

Ambition was ever there. In 2006, when he was 16, a Manchester City youth star but yet to make his senior debut, he went to Switzerland to learn from watching Brazil train for the World Cup. I accompanied him, asking if his target was ultimately to play against the Brazilians. “Hopefully one day I’ll be playing with them,” he replied. Two years on, Robinho was his strike partner.

The desire will never leave him and neither should it. It powers him, but only since joining Liverpool in January, perhaps, has intensity become not his master but his tool. At Chelsea, lack of opportunities made Sturridge sometimes try too hard to impress. “I’d probably play for five or 10 minutes [as a substitute] and every time you get the ball you feel you have to do something amazing.” He had to de-clutter. “Steve has helped a lot in terms of mindset. He’s all about self-belief: don’t go out there with the mentality of trying to do something, just let it happen.”

This complements what Didier Drogba advised. “I saw Didier in Miami this summer,” Sturridge says. “He said the strongest thing an individual footballer can have is the mental. It’s not about the tactical, it’s not about the technical, it’s not about the physical. If you believe in yourself, that will set you apart.”

Then there’s the advice of his father, Michael, and uncles Dean and Simon — all ex-pros. “I usually dwell on the bad points but I’ve learnt to appreciate the good. My dad’s been surprised. I’ve been a certain way since I was seven — hard on myself and I hate losing. We only lost two tournaments, my school team, but I remember them like yesterday and don’t remember the wins. I’m talking under-9s. I gotta let it go!” These days, he’s laughing.

“Even if I score three goals, I’ve probably had 10 chances, so should have scored five. I’ll never get complacent.”

He offers a Peters insight. “I’ve been playing football a long time and the only thing that’s changed from when you’re 17 are the pressures, the crowd, the press. I’m the same kid I was before. I have the same abilities. My mindset’s changed and I’m really happy how I’ve improved.”

Set free, mentally; unleashed, by a manager finally willing to build a big club’s attack around him, at 24 Sturridge is back on the tracks he rode in his mid-teens. Then, Brendan Rodgers recalled, he was known in youth circles as “the best No 9 [of his age] in European football”.

Now he’s working on his heading (“which in my opinion isn’t good enough”) his right foot and “my angles on the pitch in certain positions — in training, I’m doing repetitions of specific moves so I do it on autocue in games.”

If Sturridge can reach 10 out of 10, what terrors await opponents? This season he has scored against every Premier League team he’s faced bar Southampton, including one yesterday against West Brom.

He has always responded well to a manager’s faith. Owen Coyle took him on loan from Chelsea at Bolton, gave him 11 starts — and he scored eight goals. Rodgers “relates to the players. He’s helped me tactically. He’s been hard on me at times but knows everyone’s games inside out.”

In Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho he’s found accomplices with similarly quick minds and feet. He sits next to Steven Gerrard in the dressing room and finds rapport with him. “Off the field everybody gets along. You want to play for each other and die for each other on the field,” he says.

“Me and Luis haven’t played together long and we’re near enough always on opposite teams in training. There’s not much chance to learn each other’s moves but together we just click. We’ve not worked on it, it just happens,” he grins.

“Coutinho, I hope, God willing, can go to the World Cup. He deserves it. He’s worked so hard. He’s the best Brazilian I’ve played with. Lucas works tirelessly for the team, and Stevie, [he’s] a living legend.”

We meet in a Liverpool hotel where he’s publicising a new version of the Call of Duty computer game. Countless Premier League stars are addicts — playing rivals from other clubs online — and Sturridge, his brother Leon and cousin Sean compete relentlessly. The three share an apartment in Liverpool and his parents have relocated to Crewe. Family are Sturridge’s lifeblood. Having them close again makes a big difference. He feels attuned to Merseyside. “It’s down-to-earth, hard-working people, just like where I grew up in Birmingham. My dad said it’s the same mentality. The passion for football’s unbelievable. People in the street know the game. Even the Everton fans, I haven’t had any abuse off them . . . ” He pauses, grinning, “. . . until I score against them in the derby.”

Family, competition, banter: three loves. “I’m not a gambler but I enjoy having an edge. I play tennis, table tennis, pool and darts when I’m with England, with Ashley Cole and Tom Cleverley. Everyone in my family’s good at something. Dominoes, we play doubles. My grandad cheats. Put that in. The world needs to know. He needs to know that I know!

“My dad and uncles know everything about my game, help me about opponents and are there in the good times and bad times, making sure I stay grounded. Mum’s the calmer one. Well, not always calm, but she keeps me in my place. She’s amazing. Amazing cook. Caribbean cuisine. She deserves her own restaurant and I’m going to make sure that happens.”

Sturridge is also a decent chef but Sean and Leon “don’t get the privilege of that. They have to cook for themselves, they gotta learn! Otherwise I end up being the mother in the flat. I don’t want that brand.”

He has many pursuits: fashion, music (soul and hip hop; he makes his own), a charitable foundation in Jamaica he set up, film, theatre-going. For some players, it’s only football. For Sturridge, there’s a creative and active mind that needs to be kept fresh.

You take as you find and I find speaking to him a joy. He’s full of fun, intelligence, respectfulness, originality. He was the same at 16. In big groups he can sometimes take himself off to be in his own space and maybe this — and that intensity to succeed — fuelled misconceptions he was arrogant. “I’ve no idea where it came from. And that’s what was most hurtful. People who meet me have a completely different opinion.

“When I went to Chelsea people had a perception, because maybe sometimes I like to be alone and I’m not smiling all the time. But I’m smiling on the inside. I’m happy. It’s me focusing. People who’d never met me wrote bad things. It took a long time to change perceptions and I felt I had my back against the wall.”

At Chelsea he was in and out, often on the wing. “There were life lessons and the downs, even more than the ups, were the making of me.” He recently watched and rewatched a documentary on Venus and Serena Williams. Family. Hunger. Imagination. And bumps on the road. Identifiable themes.

“The story of them, coming from Compton, the dad teaching these girls to play something he’s never played . . . I was in awe,” Sturridge says. “Anything’s possible. That’s what you take from their story. You can be anything if you put your mind to it.”

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/sport/football/Premiership/article1332142.ece

I've got proper man-love for this lad.

[Gibbo]

I think he's 5th on my Liverpool man love list.

Gerrard
Suarez
Agger
Lucas
DStur

[Buzzo]

Does Sturridge have a song yet?

[marcus50bucks]

I think he's 5th on my Liverpool man love list.

Gerrard
Suarez
Agger
Lucas
DStur