Ex-Liverpool star Jason McAteer has insisted that although Daniel Sturridge produced a great performance in the 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur in the EFL Cup, the striker might still find it tough to feature more prominently under manager Jurgen Klopp.
The England international, who netted a brace against Spurs to take his season’s goalscoring tally to four, has thus far made just nine appearances in all competitions for the Reds in the present campaign.
It has been claimed that Sturridge is not ideally suited to Klopp’s pressing style of play as he offers less movement than the likes of Philippe Coutinho, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Adam Lallana.
And McAteer, who praised Sturridge’s display against Tottenham, however, feels it will not be easy for the forward to start regularly for Klopp.
“The best thing for a player is to show the manager on the pitch what he can do and that he needs to be in the first team”, he said after the match on LFC TV.
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“For Daniel it was scoring goals and producing a good performance, and that’s what he did tonight [Tuesday].
“Although I would say it was a very Daniel Sturridge performance, you don’t get a great deal of movement from Daniel, while we do with Firmino, Coutinho, Lallana and Mane, there’s a lot of freedom in the way they play, lot of interchanging.
“They can find themselves on the right, on the left, dropping deep. Daniel likes to be that central focus and that’s how he plays. And sometimes that doesn’t always work for Jurgen Klopp.
“It’s strange to say, it was a great performance and you think he should be in the team, but he’s not quite sometimes what the manager wants.”
Sturridge, who joined Liverpool from Chelsea in January 2013, has thus far scored 58 goals in 101 appearances in all competitions for the Merseyside giants.
