Klopp Rejects Idea of Selling Daniel Sturridge in January

Over the weekend, rumours emerged linking Daniel Sturridge with a January move. Where he might end up wasn’t specified, just that he had started to believe he had to be somewhere else—that his chances of even making the England squad for the upcoming World Cup depended on leaving Liverpool.

On the surface at least it’s a rumour that sounds plausible; the kind of rumour that sounds like is should be true regardless of whether it actually is. Jürgen Klopp, though, insists that Sturridge isn’t up for sale, that he’s talked to him, and that a January departure for Liverpool’s back-up striker isn’t on the cards.

“It’s a story, but I am not really interested in stories,” Klopp said when pressed on the matter. “The situation with the player is completely okay. I can imagine a player with his quality is not happy he is not starting all the time. Really I can imagine that. But at this moment we need all our players.”

Liverpool may need all their players, and Sturridge may not be for sale as far as Klopp’s concerned, but it sounds if anything as though the manager has confirmed that Sturridge might well want to leave Liverpool in January in search of the minutes that would secure him a place at next summer’s World Cup.

“We have [lots of games], even if he now feels a little different,” Klopp added, looking ahead to Liverpool’s busy winter schedule. “There is one-and-a-half months to go before the window opens and I don’t think for a second about things like this. There are so many games before then and I need everyone.”

There’s around six weeks to go before the transfer window opens again—six weeks in which a congested fixture list prove that Daniel Sturridge still has a key role to play for this Liverpool side. Or for it to become entirely clear there’s really no place for him and he needs to find a way out of the club.