Daniel Sturridge has missed more than half the season through injury. Over the past three years, he’s missed significant stretches with a series of seemingly unrelated problems. It adds up to a situation where, good as he may be when fit, Liverpool simply cannot rely on him. It’s a touch odd, then, to see the club linked to a striker with an equally worrying injury record.
That striker is Manchester City’s Stevan Jovetic, the now 25-year-old who arrived on Manchester two summers ago as one of the most highly regarded young strikers in the game. Most thought City had gotten a steal when they pried him away from Fiorentina for a paltry £22M, but missing more than 30 games over 160 days since he arrived at City has disrupted his attempts to settle in the Premier League.
He’s shown flashes of the brilliant promise that had City—along with Liverpool, who at the time had him one of their top targets—chasing him in the summer of 2013, but his recurring hamstring problems have become a massive red flag. Following a cruciate ligament injury in 2010, Jovetic missed an entire season, and ever since has struggled with his hamstring. And it’s gotten worse since he moved to City.
It’s led to a situation where City cannot feel confident in the players fitness, and that has meant that they have increasingly looked to build a side around others. As a result, Jovetic has been marginalised, sidelined even when fit. It also means that he might be available on the cheap—for as little as £12M, a bargain for a player of his talent if still a potential waste of a quite large sum should his injurys continue.
City, or so the rumours go, might even be willing to sell him down the road to Liverpool, though with rumours of Inter Milan interest they might have to pay a premium to convince the Citizens to sell to another Premier League side. Even then, though, on talent Jovetic would be a bargain. And perhaps, with a bit of luck, Liverpool could along with Sturridge get two half-broken top strikers to add up to a whole.
Of course, it’s equally likely the end result would be both sidelined at the same time and Liverpool in exactly the position they are right now. Even on the cheap, Jovetic’s injury issues make him a hard player to count on for a club desperately in need of striker reinforcements. Still, on the cheap, at the kind of fee City are rumours to be willing to let him go for, it’s hard not to be a little intrigued.