Daniel Sturridge admits he is enjoying his new role under Jurgen Klopp after starting the season in a positive manner for Liverpool.
The England international has come off the bench in all five of his Premier League appearances this term, scoring against West Ham in 4-0 win and at Stamford Bridge to equalise late on against Chelsea.
Sturridge started in the Champions League at home to Paris Saint-Germain, grabbing a goal as the Reds edged out the French side 3-2.
“The position I’m playing now isn’t the old position I was playing. In the past, I’ve been a No.9 making runs behind, whereas now it’s more a No.10 than it was,” Sturridge said.
“You’re probably a little bit deeper and working hard. The runs you probably would have made in behind you are now doing in the midfield area, getting on the ball and things like that.
“We have wingers who make the runs in behind and they act as second strikers in effect, and the No.9 is now kind of a nine-and-a-half or 10 more than a No.9. Your role is just different but I enjoy it. I’ve always felt I could play a position like that.
“It’s just a different role; I wouldn’t say I’m working harder. On the outside it might seem as if I’m working harder. I felt in the past I did work hard but it was a different kind of position at the time.
“Now, it is different so your mindset has to be different going into the game before you play, about how you work defensively.”
Perhaps it is because he is so used to returning from injury that Daniel Sturridge never takes long to getting back up to speed with Premier League football.
Time on the sidelines is now just a constant and expected undercurrent to Sturridge’s career. It didn’t take long after Jurgen Klopp arrived at Liverpool for the manager to say Sturridge needed to learn the difference between “serious pain and only pain”, clearly frustrated at just how often he had to make do without the striker.
Three years on – and 16 different injuries or illnesses later – Sturridge is at a strange point in his development: he is 29 years old and should, therefore, be around about his peak. The six months he spent on loan at relegated West Brom last season were absolutely nowhere near the best of his career, though.
But after a summer of being linked with a move away from Anfield and £170 million in new signings, Sturridge has a new-found importance at Liverpool, and one that fits him perfectly given how prone he is to injury.
Klopp has decided to manage Sturridge’s minutes extremely carefully as he eases him back into first team life at the club. Over the course of five Premier League appearances from the bench this season, Sturridge has played only 25 minutes.
With a start against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League and a full 90 minutes against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup last week, he has started to prove his fitness, but history tells us not to even begin to start relying on Sturridge. Presumably there was a good reason Klopp waited until the 86th minute to introduce Sturridge at Stamford Bridge this weekend when his team had already been chasing an equaliser for an hour.
Sturridge’s league appearances this season have lasted three, one, ten, seven and four minutes, but instead of injury ending his time on the pitch, it has been the final whistle.
In those 25 minutes, Sturridge has scored two goals. That’s as many as Roberto Firmino has in 592 minutes, as many as Alexandre Lacazette in 456 minutes and one more than Chelsea strikers Alvaro Morata and Olivier Giroud have in a combined ten-and-a-half hours.