Jurgen Klopp tells injured Liverpool star Daniel Sturridge to play through the pain

Daniel Sturridge is yet to play under Jurgen Klopp

DANIEL STURRIDGE has been told he must learn to play through the pain barrier by Jurgen Klopp following the latest setback to blight his Liverpool career.

 

Liverpool manager Klopp said the foot injury which forced Sturridge out of Thursday’s Europa League with Bordeaux was not serious and did not rule him out of Sunday’s game with Swansea.

Sturridge has yet to make an appearance under Klopp having suffered a knee injury in the build up to his first game in charge against Tottenham at the start of last month. His latest problem comes as he was about to launch his comeback.

But while Klopp has been generally sympathetic to Sturridge, he indicated his patience is not limitless.

 

“I have not been that long here, but I understand why everyone is waiting,” said Klopp. “But we have to accept the situation.

“The situation is Daniel has been very often injured in the last months and years. It is normal when you get back in training that this (another injury) can happen.

“If it wasn’t for Daniel’s quality no one would think about him being back on the pitch after such a short time.

 

Jurgen Klopp refused to rule Daniel Sturridge out of Sunday's clash with Swansea

“What you need in times like this is training. Your body has to learn to adapt to a new intensity of training and you have to learn what is serious pain or what is only pain.

“Of course everyone wants him back on the pitch. The training for him was intensive, how it should be, and then we had some new things to talk about.

“We had to make an assessment and that is what we did. Now we can say it’s not that serious but he still can’t go on as before. That’s completely normal after a long injury.

 

“If you think back to last season, he has only been able to play these three games since, one against Aston Villa when he scored two goals, and two others.

“It has been a really long period out now we have to stay patient I am sorry to say. Sorry for me, sorry for you, sorry for him but that’s the situation.”

Sturridge had trained at Melwood yesterday morning as normal, but reported a problem with his foot after Liverpool had arrived at their pre-match hotel ahead of the Bordeaux game.

He had been unlikely to start and in his absence Christian Benteke earned a dubious penalty, converted by James Milner, before conjuring an excellent winning goal in first-half stoppage time.