West Ham Reportedly Plot Deadline Day Sturridge Swoop

Earlier in the month, the Bretwood Gazette got football fans talking when they claimed that West Ham were preparing a £25M bid for Daniel Sturridge. In the weeks since, nothing much has come of that—at least aside from Liverpool continuing to insist that Sturridge isn’t for sale.

West Ham’s plans for a move that may never have been dashed didn’t end their Sturridge interest, though, as today the Gazette has made a second stab at a Sturridge revelation. And while it’s West Ham again, this time around it’s rather bizarrely meant to be a loan for the remainder of the current season.

As far as transfer rumours go it’s an odd one, even by deadline day standards. Sturridge has hardly played this year and once again is targeting a return a few weeks from now. If it goes anything like the last time he targeted a return a few weeks from now it ends with a setback and talk of a return a month on.

The whole idea behind a permanent move for Sturridge was always that Liverpool had grown tired of always waiting on him to find his way back to fitness and were looking to move on. A loan—while he’s currently out injured and with doubts he’ll play a major role the rest of the season—doesn’t address that.

It just lets him go and sit on West Ham’s trainer table rather than Liverpool’s, and if somehow he does find something resembling fitness, West Ham benefit. If he doesn’t, they ship him back to Liverpool at the end of the year. Either way, there’s no conceivable benefit to Liverpool, at least not beyond a loan fee.

If Liverpool were hurting financially that might be reason enough, but with the club on solid ground it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where loaning out Sturridge would make any kind of sense. Even by the standards of deadline day, then, it seems a nonsense rumour. Better luck on the third try, Gazette?