Daniel Sturridge – where is the love?

SUPPORTERS of Liverpool FC love their strikers. They always have.

Going right back to when Bill Shankly reincarnated the club in the 1960’s, the Kop have had a long list of goal scoring idols. From Ian St John to Roger Hunt. From Hunt to Kevin Keegan. From Mighty Mouse to Kenny Dalglish. From the King to Ian Rush. From Rushy to John Aldridge. From Aldo to Robbie Fowler. From God to Michael Owen. From the treacherous Welshman to Fernando Torres. From the treacherous Spaniard to Luis Suarez.

The Kop loves nothing more than someone who constantly sticks the ball in the back of it’s net.

Liverpool are currently in a position where they have 2 of the 3 top goal scorers in the league but the love of the people seems to be directed significantly more at one than the other.

Luis Suarez, summer transfer saga and all, gets away with a bit more than Daniel Sturridge and he certainly gets his name sung more often. Perhaps that’s only natural. Sturridge isn’t at Suarez’s level when it comes to entertaining the masses. He isn’t quite as charismatic or talented as his Uruguayan partner in crime either, but he’s not a million miles away and his performances deserve a little more adulation and recognition than he has been receiving of late.

Don’t get me wrong, Sturridge is hardly being booed by fans or heavily criticised. Indeed, he is praised far and wide by Liverpool supporters in the main but there is still a slight lack of warmth to Sturridge that seems strange. When he played for England against Germany last week while he carried an injury, Liverpool fans were annoyed. So was his manager. Brendan Rodgers basically told the press that it was Sturridge’s fault that he couldn’t start the last Saturday’s match as he’d prioritised an international friendly over a local derby.

Pretty understandable criticism and it was hardly excessive but it should be put into context. Steven Gerrard had far more reason to pull out of that game with Germany given his age, the fact that he needed a pain killing injection and the fact that no matter what happens between now and June, he will be starting England’s World Cup games.

Sturridge on the other hand, despite being the top scoring English striker in the land, has a lot to prove at international level. He’s only scored twice for his country in nine outings, one being a penalty, the other coming against the mighty San Marino. It’s only natural that he wanted to go out against Germany in a high profile match (or as high profile as any friendly match involving a Roy Hodgson team can be) and show what he could do, injured or not. The fact that he was unable to start the game against Everton allowed Rodgers’ to have a slight pop at his striker, but it’s doubtful that Luis Suarez or Steven Gerrard would have received a public rebuke in the same circumstances.

Sturridge copped a bit more flack recently when Liverpool lost away at Arsenal. Late on, Luis Suarez ran clear on the Arsenal goal and elected to shoot rather than attempt a pass to his strike partner. In truth, he had every right to. The pass to Sturridge was not an easy one and Suarez would have scored 9 time out of 10 from the position he found himself in. Unfortunately this time he missed. Sturridge threw his arms in the air and screamed at Suarez for ignoring him. Cameras showed slow motion replays of Sturridge’s reaction and there were more than a few people unhappy with his actions. Let’s compare and contrast this with a recent on field Suarez outburst.

Against Everton, Joe Allen found himself with a chance that he would score 99 times out of a 100. He was clean through 1 on 1 with Tim Howard and had most of the goal to aim at. He also had Luis Suarez to his left who was in a position bordering on offside. He made the right choice and went for goal. He shot wide. It was a horrendous miss. Suarez’s reaction? To barrack Allen and gesticulate wildly a la Sturridge at the Emirates. The only difference is that no one is really pulling Suarez for his petulance. He gets a pass because he’s so brilliant. Sturridge seemingly doesn’t receive the same leeway despite the fact that, for Liverpool, he is also pretty damn brilliant.

Those illustrious names from St John to Suarez that were mentioned earlier all failed to produce goals at the same rate as Sturridge has thus far in his Anfield career. Indeed, Daniel is the quickest of the lot to get to 20 goals for Liverpool. Before him, Fernando Torres held the record. He took 31 games to do it. Daniel Sturridge took 26 (and a few of them were coming off the bench). We all remember how loved Fernando Torres was now, don’t we? He was an icon on Merseyside as soon as he slipped a shot past Petr Cech at the Anfield Road end on his home debut. Perhaps if Sturridge came from sunny Spain and had flowing blonde locks and a smile rather than arriving from Chelsea and wearing a scowl he’d be more feted.

Perhaps if he didn’t arrive with a reputation for being aloof, selfish and arrogant, Liverpool fans would love him that bit more than they currently do.

In fairness to Sturridge he’s done all he can to shed the negative image he arrived on Merseyside with. His goal celebration might not be to everyone’s taste but it’s clearly jocular and a bit of self deprecation. The fact that he seeks out a youngster in the crowd at the end of every match and hands his shirt over to that child also demonstrates a softer side as well as some maturity. Dancing with a fan on camera in a car park is hardly the action of a man who takes himself too seriously either. All in all, his behaviour since walking through the Paisley gates has been pretty much exemplary. Had Fernando Torres been shown on the internet getting out of his car to dance with a young fan one can imagine how much adulation he’d have received.

Maybe it’s because ‘Sturridge’ is a hard name to get into a song. Maybe its simply that local lads and foreigners have more mystique to them than a lad from Birmingham who has played for Manchester City and Chelsea. Whatever it is, right now Daniel Sturridge doesn’t quite get the adoration that great Liverpool strikers have in the past. But he really should.

In three or four years time he is far more likely to still be banging in goals at the Kop end than Luis Suarez. In less than a year he’s elevated himself from a fringe player at Chelsea to one of the best strikers in England and he is still young with areas of his game that can be improved.

If I were a betting man than I’d be more than happy to wager that in a couple of years time Daniel Sturridge will be one of Europe’s top forwards. You could argue that he’s nearly at that level already.

It’s high time he was celebrated like those who have gone before him.

Live4Liverpool is recruiting columnists. For further info contact the site editor at live4liverpool@snack-media.com

Follow us on Twitter here: @live4Liverpool and ‘Like’ us on Facebook