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Daniel Sturridge’s long road to recovery

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Can Sturridge come back into form against Man Utd on Sunday

Can Sturridge come back into form against Man Utd on Sunday

The greatest challenge for supporters when it comes to Daniel Sturridge is balancing our frustration with patience.

It seemed so cruel when Roy Hodgson’s mismanagement at the beginning of the season ruled him out of injury for a month. And then another month. And then another. Then nearly one more. This was supposed to be his time in the spotlight. His first season without Luis Suarez stealing the show, allowing him to show everyone what he could really do. That he had what it takes to lead the line at a big club.

We all believed he could do it. We still believe. At least, we should. Sturridge was held up as our saviour during those long, hard winter months. If it weren’t for that injury, we’d be in the title race. The sooner he came back, the sooner we’d start performing. The sooner we’d start scoring goals. The sooner we’d get back to winning games.

Somehow, a month before his return, we figured out how to do all that on our own. Scoring goals was a bit more difficult than we’d like (arguably it still is) but we got better. Our season is back on track. Yet Sturridge has only scored 1 goal in every 4 games on average since his return.

It is clear that it is still taking Sturridge a long time to regain his sharpness. He did hit the post against Swansea, and he most certainly wasn’t helped out by a lack of service in the first half, but he’s still missing something. Sturridge is effectively doing his pre-season all over again and it shows. Honestly, he may not be back to his best until next season.

It’s difficult to remember that recovering from a long term injury takes its time. Lucas has arguably never been the same since he was ruled out for the best part of two years. Luckily Sturridge wasn’t out that long and nor does it seem like it has left that devastating an effect on him.

At Swansea I did briefly wonder if Sturridge had gotten worse since he came back. When he scored on his return against West Ham, we all thought the same thing.

He’s back! The Prodigal Son returns! We’ll be unstoppable!

We’re still rather good, but we’re not quite there yet. Sturridge still has that finishing instinct, but it doesn’t turn up as often as we’d like. There was a time last season where you felt the longer he had to think things through, the more time he had to line up a shot, the more likely it was that he would score. Now, it’s more like he overthinks things and inevitably screws it up.

Daniel Sturridge might have regained his fitness, but in his head he still has a lot of rust to scrape off. One day he’ll go back to being that genius, majestic striker we knew last year. He still has all that in his locker.

He just needs a bit of time.

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Drummer, gamer and football fanatic. I love to write about Liverpool and spend most of my time thinking about the mighty Reds. That or Game of Thrones.