Daniel Sturridge to Miss Crystal Palace Match Following Injury Setback

Daniel Sturridge returned from the injured list to make an appearance off the bench in the second half against West Bromwich Albion last week. Though his time at the club is expected to be limited, there were hopes that he might still have a role to play in the final games of the 2016-17 season.

There were hopes that his skill in front of goal could help to lift Liverpool back into the Champions League while at the same time helping to ensure Sturridge would attract the attention of an appealing destination club in the transfer market in the summer. Any such hopes took yet another blow today.

While training for today's match against Crystal Palace, Sturridge was felled by a reoccurrence of the hip injury that sidelined him earlier in the year, when he missed more than a month with a hip injury suffered while training to return from a virus picked up while the club were in Spain for a mid-season camp.

The injury isn't considered especially serious this time around, and there remains some hope that Sturridge won't miss more than just this one game because of it, but with just five games left to go this season—and just four after today—there isn't much time left for Sturridge to get out on the pitch.

Though at his best Sturridge was one of the top strikers in England, given his injury record it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine an ambitious club being willing to spend heavily to acquire him over the summer, which could end up being bad news for both Sturridge and Liverpool.