Daniel Sturridge

[Vermilion]

is on 5 live in 4 minutes.

Synchronise watches.....3 2 1......03.02pm Now!

edit: My pc clock isn't in tune with the Est post timer it seems.

Anyway, he's on in a bit. Talking about stuff.

[kev776]

How exciting, rather he ****ing trained hard and not talk.

[Muddled]

Can't he do both?

[kev776]

Can't he do both?

Yes, when he does his job properly which through no fault of his own, he hasn't since last August. Just be quiet, get fit and start scoring, then he can discuss his Media career.

Injured players should be seen and not heard.

[Red_Polo]

Yes, when he does his job properly which through no fault of his own, he hasn't since last August. Just be quiet, get fit and start scoring, then he can discuss his Media career.

Injured players should be seen and not heard.

Definitely. ****ing scumbag. I'm fuming.

[dom9]

Injured players should be seen and not heard.

Is it like that in the army too, Lieutenant?

[Vermilion]

How exciting, rather he ****ing trained hard and not talk.

Yeah, he was at a kids school, trying to get them into eating and living healthy, and talking about that.

The *******!

[BigChief]

cell

[kev776]

Yeah, he was at a kids school, trying to get them into eating and living healthy, and talking about that.

The *******!

It was tongue in cheek but some players should be careful when in the Media after a long time out. If it is what you say, good luck to him, it is about all he can do at the moment.

[SB]

Whenever I see this thread bumped I think the worst & think he's been injured again. It may take a while to get over that I think.

[cream]

We should have two Sturridge threads, one to talk about his goals and another that only gets bumped when the inevitable happens.

[EwarWoo]

It's confirmed, Sturridge will finally be back playing this weekend





Is what we'll say in that other thread.

[Vermilion]

It was tongue in cheek but some players should be careful when in the Media after a long time out. If it is what you say, good luck to him, it is about all he can do at the moment.

Yeah i know, mine too tbf. tBH when i heard he was on, i was hoping for an announcment of sorts, at least a clue, but he gave naff all away when asked when he'd be back, just said he feels great, and it's up to the boss, he implied he feels ready, but followed it with a...but the club know best when i'm ready, very diplomatic he was..

Talked mainly about the kids, and cooking an omelet.

Anyway, i was on the case, and if he had said something about when he'd be back, as it was live, we'd have known here on Est faster than even Twitter! Or maybe as fast as my typing is totallu ****!, ok; faster than Bender anyway.

[Chazza]

Daniel Sturridge returns to Liverpool with a new outlook

Exclusive interview: Ahead of his anticipated comeback from an injury 'nightmare', the Liverpool striker explains why he aims to savour every moment he plays

Daniel Sturridge has been talking with candour for the best part of an hour about all the subjects that you might expect: his anticipated comeback on Saturday against West Ham United, the “nightmare” of being injured, his “devastation” at Steven Gerrard’s imminent departure from Liverpool, why the club can still thrive in their captain’s absence and the truth behind public perceptions of Mario Balotelli.

But, just as the interview is drawing to a close, we stumble across a topic that provokes a visible transformation in his body language. Sturridge’s eyes have lit up, there is a big smile on his face and he is trying to put into words exactly how it feels to score a goal for Liverpool or England.

It is five long months since he has experienced this particular sensation. “There is nothing that compares,” he says. “It’s strange, you go home and it’s just like, ‘man’.” Sturridge lets off a sigh of excitement and then adds: “Doesn't matter what you do in life, you can’t re-create the feeling. I miss that feeling. It’s just the best feeling that I’ve ever had in my life.”

We are seated in a classroom at St Paul’s Catholic School in Liverpool but Sturridge’s mind is now three miles away in front of the Kop.

“If you play five-a-side and you score, it feels good, doesn’t it?” he says. “If I score a goal in training it feels great. But in a stadium, especially Anfield, or even when you score away and the fans are silent, it’s just amazing. You are just in the moment. There are times when I’ve scored and I can’t even remember what happened. It’s so good.”

It sounds almost like an out-of-body experience? “Seriously, you would just have to experience it to know what I mean,” he says. “Sometimes you are not conscious of it all and sometimes you just don’t even know what has happened. There are only certain times when I have realised and you can enjoy it and you can be there. Maybe it’s on your mind, thinking, ‘yeah, that was a decent feeling’ but afterwards you are straight back to work and you are just focused on trying to help your team win.”

The correlation between Sturridge scoring and his team winning is clear. He has scored 36 goals in 52 games for Liverpool and their win ratio falls from 61 to 52 per cent in his absence. You have to wonder, then, what might have been if Sturridge had succeeded in convincing Brendan Rodgers that he could have played in Tuesday’s Capital One Cup semi-final second leg, even if the manager’s caution was understandable following his hamstring, calf and thigh injuries.

“I could have played in that semi-final, and it was the most difficult thing for me,” says Sturridge. “I went to London with the team. I wanted to push myself and I wanted it so bad. It was the management who made the decision. I argued my case, but at the end of the day they made the best decision for us going forward, for the club, for myself. I can’t be too upset with the decision they made.”

Sturridge is now desperate to look forward but part of that process also involves considering how much has changed in recent weeks.

Gerrard’s decision to leave Liverpool at the end of the season has inevitably sent shock waves through the dressing room as well as the wider football world. “Words can’t describe what he’s done for Liverpool as well as his country,” says Sturridge. “I’m devastated. I think he’ll be at the club in some capacity very soon and I’m sure he’ll manage the club one day.”

The departure of Gerrard will also further highlight Sturridge’s evolving status as one of the senior players and he believes that he has a “duty” to help Liverpool’s emerging talent, describing both Raheem Sterling and Jordan Ibe as like “younger brothers”.

Sturridge also knows how it feels to be at clubs in Chelsea and Manchester City who were less committed than Liverpool to giving young English talent their chance and, as Sterling continues contract negotiations, you have to wonder if there is a lesson in those experiences.

“As a young player I think it’s important to have people who talk to you,” says Sturridge. “I’m 25. I’m not old but I’m not a young, young player. It’s easy to become complacent when you are earning decent money as a young player. It’s important to understand that there is a lot to achieve and there is a long way to go before you are where you actually want to be.”

Last week Sturridge posted a picture on Twitter of himself and Mario Balotelli together alongside the message: “We’re gonna be linking up soon!!” Whether England and Italy’s respective World Cup No 9s can click on the pitch remains to be seen but they have become friends off it and Sturridge is adamant that wider perceptions of Balotelli are distorted. “Everybody judges a book by its cover,” he says. “I can look at 50 books and say every one of those books is bad. Then you read one and you can say, ‘this book is amazing’. That’s the same with meeting people.

“There are some characters in life, let alone football, who you see and it’s just the way they act in the heat of the moment. You can sit down and have a normal conversation with a lot of people and you’d be surprised what they have been through to get to where they are.

“Mario’s been really nice. I enjoy playing with him, I enjoy his company. People have made for him to be this crazy, wild character but he’s not that. I don’t believe that he is as wild as people think he is.”

Sturridge has also had to deal with perceptions that he would regard as unfair. He is active on social media and, after recent setbacks, is well aware that he will be accused of being injury-prone and fragile. “I could say a lot of things about people’s lifestyles,” he shrugs. “I feel that there are some players who are lucky not to be injured and some who are unfortunate to be injured. I know I get stick on social media but that is from people who have a lot of time on their hands and like to share their opinions.

“I go on there for my fans, who I enjoy talking to and are people who care about me. I am thankful for their support. I don’t worry about the criticism. I used to when I was younger. Now I only listen to the opinions of people I care about.

“I played in a long season with Liverpool and went to the World Cup, and that was the first season I played such an intense programme. I came back for pre-season and picked up an injury, which hindered everything going forward.”

Sturridge’s wider support structure has clearly been vital during his rehabilitation and he has used the past five months to make both physical and mental improvements. He does look visibly stronger in his upper body and he wants to approach the rest of his career with a new outlook. “This is just one small moment in my career,” he says. “I have got another 10 years, and I see this time as being something that will allow me to enjoy my career more, to get more out of it.

“Putting on a Liverpool shirt alone is huge for any individual. The great strikers that the club has had before, that’s pressure alone to live up to what they have done. For myself, I don’t worry about any of the expectancies because what I am dealing with now, hundreds have dealt with before. I don’t worry about scoring. I feel if you put pressure on yourself to do something, sometimes you don’t achieve it. Maybe the stresses you had before are not stresses any more. I’ll have a very different approach from now on.”

As he speaks about this approach, the perspective that he derives both from his family and Christian faith is obvious. It is also easy to sense the influence of Prof Steve Peters, a sports psychiatrist for Liverpool and England.

“I am trying to savour it a bit more,” says Sturridge. “I am very hard on myself the majority of the time and don’t enjoy the highs as I should. I’d score, may play well and just think, ‘OK, tick that off the list and on to the next’, but you have to embrace the moment. Being out for so long has also made me realise how much I want to achieve and understand what I have to do to get there.”

Sturridge says that the hardest moment, looking from the sidelines, was to see the club playing the likes of Real Madrid in the Champions League. Yet within that European campaign, and certainly since, both against Chelsea in the League Cup and in a sequence of just one defeat in 10 Premier League games, there are signs that last season’s fluency is being rekindled. Sturridge’s return should make a huge difference and he is sure that, even without Luis Suárez, Liverpool can again qualify for the Champions League. Beyond that, and even without Gerrard, he believes that they can re-establish themselves amongst Europe’s elite.

“We saw the other night against Chelsea, the football we played was unbelievable,” says Sturridge. “I’m looking forward to the future with the club. I’m looking forward to achieving something because we will achieve something. Mentally I know where I want to be, where I hope the club will be and where the management will want to be: we want to be the best.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/11380965/Daniel-Sturridge-returns-to-Liverpool-with-a-new-outlook.html

[Chris]

Cant believe we had people on here saying he was overrated because he was injured or "just got all the goals because everyone marked Suarez".

He's world class. And he's back!!!