Jamie Carragher has revealed that Daniel Sturridge confronted him during Liverpool’s end-of-season trip to Australia.
Carragher joined fellow Reds legends Steven Gerrard and Steve McManaman for a one-off game as Jurgen Klopp’s side took on Sydney FC last month.
But the former defender’s comments as a prominent media pundit were at the heart of an exchange with Sturridge after the post-season friendly game.
Earlier in the season, Carragher had suggested that Liverpool should consider offloading the striker, who has been beset by regular injury problems.
“As soon as I got on the plane, I could see Sturridge wasn’t his normal self with me,” he told Anfield Extra.
“And he pulled me in Australia after the game, or at half time when we’d come off. He said ‘why did you say they should sell me?’.
I said ‘ooh, fair enough!’ I thought ‘I’m not having you putting me on the back foot’ so I went straight back and said ‘well, what else can they do?!’
“He wasn’t too happy that I’d said that, but my point was that a player of his quality, you either play or you go.
“If I was him, I wouldn’t want to be on the bench, and from Klopp’s point of view there is nobody else on the bench he could get money for, if he needed say £20m or £25m.
“Listen, you could still keep him. If Daniel Sturridge is happy playing 25 games next season, you are not going to get many sub strikers with his quality.
“But to be honest I’d seen Slaven Bilic speak about him towards the end of the season, so I thought ‘oh, he’ll end up at a West Ham or somewhere’.
“But you see his quality, it’s difficult to go and buy a striker with that.”