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Liverpool’s fearsome strike partnership of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge has terrorised defences all season and it looks like it will never end. The Reds are the dark horses in the title race and their goal-scoring duo have all the ability to blast them to glory even if Graeme Sounness says the pair need trophies to be compared to Rush and Dalglish.
The pair have a battle of their own going on, though. Suarez tops the Golden Boot chart with 23 goals but Sturridge is closing in on his teammate and has racked up an impressive 18 himself. With 11 games left of the closest Premier League season ever, who will win the coveted award?
Daniel Sturridge
Sturridge has been in sparkling form this season. Prior to the injury that kept him out of action for eight Premier League games, he’d scored 9 goals in 12 league appearances and was leading the Liverpool forward line well in the absence of Suarez. However, the Uruguayan took charge of Christmas – in Sturridge’s absence – and shot up to the top of the scoring charts with ease.
Daniel Sturridge stats
Since Sturridge returned against Stoke City, though, Brendan Rodgers has utilised his strikers differently. One now plays centrally and the other drifts out wide – most of the time it has been Sturridge through the middle, which has worked wonderfully well. He has scored during his last eight league games, racking up 10 goals in the process. Suarez’s goal tally has taken a bit of a hit with the change in system, though, and has scored just once in his last six matches.
Suarez Chances Created – PL 2013/14
With the form Sturridge is showing – and it looks like it will continue right into the final dying embers of the season – he could overtake Suarez in the scoring charts. The Uruguayan has been creating a lot more goals recently and now holds the joint highest number of assists in the Premier League. He sits top of both the assists and scoring charts but with Sturridge’s form and confidence in front of goal, that could be eradicated quickly.
If Rodgers continues to use the current system to effect and keep Sturridge scoring, there is every chance he could score the required number of goals to surpass Suarez and claim the Golden Boot. The Englishman was poor in the FA Cup defeat to Arsenal and should have scored. Some strikers would have let that affect them but Sturridge threw that out of the window to score within two minutes against Swansea at the weekend. He grabbed another later on in the first-half to take him to just five goals behind Suarez.
Since returning from injury, Sturridge has gone from 9 goals to 18 and Suarez has moved from 20 to 23. The swing in goals has changed once again at Liverpool and Sturridge is on fire and astonishingly still at 11/2 on the Betfair exchange to be top goalscorer come the end of the season. Should he carry on the way he’s been playing, he will surpass Luis Suarez and claim the Golden Boot for himself.
Luis Suarez
Such is his level of talent, Liverpool’s talisman was touted as one of the favourites to win the Premier League golden boot at the start of the season, despite the huge question marks hovering over his discipline and commitment to the Merseysiders’ cause.
The 27-year-old was ruled out of the first five games of the season as he completed the remainder of his ban for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic and strike partner Daniel Sturridge already had four goals to his name by the time he returned to the side in late September.
However, Suarez hit the ground running and scored six goals in his five appearances and quickly rubbished any rumours he would follow suit similar to Fernando Torres, when the Spaniard wanted to engineer a move away from Anfield, by focusing on achieving his Champions League ambitions under Brendan Rodgers.
The former Ajax man has been the best player in the league this season by some distance and with regards to his calendar year, it is difficult to argue that he is not far behind Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo, whether you love or loathe his antics on the pitch.
Although the Uruguayan is currently experiencing a drought of Saharan proportions by his own ridiculously high standards, having failed to find the net in four Premier League appearances, his overall record stands at 23 goals in 22 appearances this season, which is the same as his total for the last campaign.
Luis Suarez stats
Although he has been pushed out to the right by Rodgers since Sturridge returned from injury, the percentages are still stacked in Suarez’s favour. The Englishman may have scored 14 goals on the 13 occasions when the pair have been on the pitch together, compared to Suarez’s 12, but this highlights that Sturridge needs Suarez more than vice versa.
Suarez scored 11 goals during Sturridge’s eight game injury absence during what was his most fruitful spell of the campaign, so there is an argument that the Uruguayan fails to find the net when the 24-year-old is alongside him. But Suarez should edge out his team mate simply because he has the ability to score from any situation and makes goals for himself out of nothing.
Luis Suarez stats
The pair’s shot accuracy is the same (55%), but Suarez is involved in far more of Liverpool’s chances. Suarez has had a league high 77 shots on target, which is just shy of double what his strike partner had managed with 40. His total shot count also stands at a huge 123, 56 more than then Englishman. Another factor that tips the balance in Suarez’s favour is that he often dictates set pieces for the Merseysiders, with three goals from free-kicks.
Luis Suarez shot accuracy
Suarez is such a devastating player when he is on top form that he is simply unplayable; another dose of the single handed beating he gave to Norwich earlier in the season could be just around the corner. Another hat-trick or four goal haul will propel him past the 30 goal mark. With 11 games left to play it will prove just beyond Sturridge to overturn a five goal deficit but Suarez should go on to claim the top scorer accolade not just in England but the continent.
