Sturridge Urges Liverpool to Sign Defensive Midfielder Quickly
Daniel Sturridge has delivered a blunt message to Liverpool’s hierarchy: sign a defensive midfielder, and do it fast.
Liverpool’s title defence is already creaking. On Sunday at St James’ Park, the 2024/25 champions needed a 99th-minute penalty from Dominik Szoboszlai just to scrape a 2-2 draw against Newcastle. The late escape couldn’t hide the familiar problem staring everyone in the face.
The way Newcastle sliced through the middle of the pitch had Jamie Carragher raging on Sky Sports about the “madness” of leaving last season’s midfield issues unresolved. Under Andoni Iraola they were alarmingly easy to play through – just as they had been under Arne Slot, only now without the shock factor.
Sturridge’s clear demand
In the Sky Sports studio, Sturridge didn’t dress it up. He went straight for the obvious weak spot.
“I think the team needs a defensive midfielder, personally,” he said. “We’ve been talking about a defensive midfielder at Liverpool for the last three years.
“Gravenberch coming into the team, playing consistently and Liverpool winning the Premier League sort of changed that philosophy, but if you actually analyse the midfield, they’re all naturally more attacking players.”
That is the crux of it. Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister formed a slick, progressive double pivot in last season’s title run, but neither is a classic number 6. They can control games, they can create, but they don’t live to destroy, to screen, to suffocate counter-attacks.
Sturridge had just watched a player who does that job. He had been impressed by new Brentford signing Mamadou Sangare’s display against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, and used him as the benchmark Liverpool currently lack.
“Liverpool don’t have that profile of player right now,” Sturridge said. “I really like Trey Nyoni as a player. He’s brilliant, but he’s more of a ball-playing [number] 6 or [number] 8.
“He’s not a destroyer. He’s not someone who’s gonna strike fear into the opposition like Sangare can, or like N’Golo Kante over the years.”
That word – destroyer – is what Liverpool fans have been craving since the peak days of Fabinho. Someone who relishes the ugly side, who wins duels, who closes doors before danger even appears.
A gap everyone can see – and little time to fix it
You would struggle to find many inside Anfield or out who disagree with Sturridge right now. The evidence is on the pitch every week.
Gravenberch and Mac Allister bring control and class, but when the game becomes stretched, when transitions start to bite, Liverpool look exposed. The midfield still feels built to play, not to protect.
One name ticks most of the boxes on paper: Adam Wharton. The Crystal Palace midfielder has the range, the reading of the game, and the presence to operate as that deep-lying anchor. But with the window entering its final days, prising him out of Selhurst Park would require a huge fee and an even bigger change of heart from Palace. At this stage, it looks wildly optimistic.
So attention turns back to what Liverpool already have. Trey Nyoni is the great hope, a 19-year-old with elegance on the ball and the intelligence to operate as a 6 or an 8. He might grow into that role in time. He might even own it one day.
Right now, though, asking him to become the defensive cornerstone of a team defending a Premier League title would be an enormous burden. It would also mask, rather than solve, the failures of recent transfer windows, where the need for a specialist holding midfielder has been obvious and repeatedly kicked down the road.
The clock is ticking loudly at Anfield. The market shuts soon, the fixtures won’t wait, and the margin for error in a title race is brutally thin.
Liverpool’s former No. 15 has spelled it out. The question now is whether those in charge act on it – or leave the heart of the champions’ midfield exposed for another season.
