Liverpool chief Jurgen Klopp has clarified his decision to bench England forward Daniel Sturridge for the Premier League game against Tottenham Hotspur. Daniel Sturridge came off the bench in the dying minutes of the 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane but seemed displeased by his manager’s refusal to include him in the starting line-up. Klopp pointed out to a couple of reasons validating his team selection after the game.
Last week, Daniel Sturridge was reportedly unhappy with his manager on account of being played out wide instead of his preferred central role. Jurgen Klopp responded to the player promising him ‘all will be good’ and further telling the press that there are no differences between the two. However, the situation seems to be not resolved yet and could turn out worse than imagined.
Also read: Daniel Sturridge wants to play more central at Liverpool
To avoid such an event, Jurgen Klopp has explained that dropping Daniel Sturridge was a tactical choice as the game required him to address the defensive aspect of his side. He further added that there is no question of what Sturridge can do and his goal-scoring prowess will materialise soon that will make things ‘good’.
"Daniel Sturridge is a wonderfully skilful player. But for the game, I made the decision that the kind of defending what it was and for what we needed," he said.
"In the last game against Tottenham at home he made an outstanding game so it's possible. But I can only pick 11 players for the start, I make these decisions never against one player so I'm really happy that we have him and he will play, he will score and all will be good. There's no big mountain for him. It's a good team, thank God. Hopefully we can make different line-ups for different games."
Also read: EPL 2016/17: Tottenham Hotspur vs Liverpool – 5 Talking Points
Jurgen Klopp further added to the significance of his goal-machine finding his prime, which requires full fitness. He pointed out that Daniel Sturridge missed out on a full fledged pre-season training and thus, it seems the manager wants the player to build his rhythm.
"He did not have a perfect pre-season, that's how it is," he said.
"A few other players had more pre-season. They played together. They've trained from the first day of pre-season together so of course that's an advantage. Then when you see when it was still 1-0, we needed someone to come on for the counter-attack, that's Divock [Origi] and unfortunately even though he was running we didn't find him. Nobody has real rhythm [yet]."
