Rodgers tips Sturridge to return this month
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LIVERPOOL’S Daniel Sturridge is set for a January return, according to manager Brendan Rodgers, who hinted he was unlikely to dip into the transfer market to solve the club’s current striker issues.
Sturridge last played for Liverpool in August after suffering a thigh injury on international duty with England and his absence has been keenly felt as the Merseysiders have struggled for goals and consistency in a disappointing start to the season.
With close-season signing Mario Balotelli failing to score a Premier League goal and Rickie Lambert, another summer arrival, struggling to cement a place in the side, Sturridge’s return to action cannot come soon enough for last season’s runner-up.
“He’s coming back into the country in early January to finalize his rehab here,” Rodgers told reporters yesterday.
“Hopefully at some point in January — the middle to end — he’ll be available to play.”
Rodgers has drafted Raheem Sterling into a makeshift center forward role in recent weeks in an effort to replicate last season’s scintillating attacking play, but he said he does not expect any new arrivals in January.
“My first look is always within,” he said. “We have seen how we have adapted the team and the structure of the team in order to make that work. I still think we’ve got players that can do that for us. So there won’t be much activity for us in January. We brought in a lot of players over the course of the summer that we feel can develop, and those players are now starting to adapt to the life here at Liverpool and our way of working.
“There won’t be a lot of transfer activity from us, if any, over the course of the January period. My job is to coach and manage the players that are currently here and work hard at maximizing the talent that they have.”
Premier League victory
Liverpool, chasing a third successive Premier League victory, hosts Leicester City today.
Meanwhile, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has called on the Football Association to ban players who dive in order to rid the game of play acting to win free kicks or penalties.
Diving is once again a hot topic in the Premier League after three Chelsea players, Cesc Fabregas, Diego Costa and Willian, were all booked for simulation this month.
Chelsea defenders Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic have also recently been accused of diving by opposition managers with Blues boss Jose Mourinho countering that there is an agenda against players at his club.
Wenger said the only way to solve the problem would be for the FA to take retrospective action against errant players.
“I’m against diving. We should punish it after the game. The problem will be to decide when it was obvious diving or not. That’s a big issue and sometimes it’s not obvious. Punish only obvious cases but not mixed ones. You have to suspend the players, I don’t know how long. But the only way that the players will stop doing it, is if they feel they can get punished.”
The Arsenal manager was also quick to dismiss speculation linking forward Lukas Podolski with a move to Inter Milan. The German has found himself largely out of favor this season, having started only two matches, but Wenger was adamant that any move to Italy was not imminent. “That is a joke. There’s only talk,” he said.
Arsenal lies fifth, level on 33 points with fourth-placed Southampton, which it faces today.
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