Carra: 'Faultless' £29m star is LFC's 'best attacking player'. Better than £31m man?

Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge continues to go from strength to strength, and despite the breadth of attacking riches in Brendan Rodgers' squad, Reds legend Jamie Carragher insists that the England striker is LFC's best player.

Speaking to Sky Sports over the weekend, Carra hailed Sturridge as a 'key man' and a 'guaranteed starter', adding:

"He [Sturridge] now knows he is probably the best attacking player Liverpool have got and that people will be looking at him to deliver [and] I think he will do that".

I don't see any credible argument against this.

Sturridge is clearly Liverpool's best attacking player, and he's been a revelation for the club since the day he arrived:

* 46 goals/assists in 50 games for Liverpool. Just read that again: 46 goals/assists in 50 games. Only the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, and Suarez achieve a similar creative strike-rate.

* Scored more goals (36) in his first 50 games than any other LFC player in history (Bar George Allan in the 1890s)

To be honest, I had minor reservations about Sturridge's transfer to Liverpool, but the comparatively small £12m transfer fee assuaged those minor doubts somewhat. The deal felt like an educated risk, and a sensible use of transfer funds, as opposed to ridiculous gamble of signing Andy Carroll for £35m.

Sturridge - also described recently as 'faultless' by Carra - is a revelation for Liverpool, it's as simple as that. 46 goals/assists in 50 games says it all, and in my view, the striker is - pound-for-pound - LFC's best value for money signing since Sami Hyypia. Luis Suarez was also amazing value for money, but Liverpool paid £23m for the Uruguayan, which is a fairly significant transfer fee.

As regular visitors will know, my one of my pet-peeves is gross overpraise of players, but when a player actually achieves something notable, then praise is warranted. In Sturridge's case, he has consistently delivered the goods for eighteen months now, and deserves all the praise coming his way.

It still amazes me how some LFC fans continue to underrate Sturridge, and insist on spreading the spurious myth that he's a 'selfish' player to the detriment of the team. Strikers *should* be selfish, and when Sturridge achieves a creative return of 46 goals/assists in 50 games, he has earned the right to go-for-goal whenever he has the chance.

Sturridge is even underrated when it comes to transfer value. According to the recent player value index from the CIES Football Observatory (which has detailed knowledge of actual prices paid in thousands of transfers to ‘Big Five’ divisions over recent years), Raheem Sterling's 'objective market value' is currently £31m-£36m, and he is allegedly worth more than Sturridge, who is valued at £29m-£34m.

For me, there's no way Sterling is worth more than Sturridge. When averages a goal/assist *every single game*, then he'll be on the same level of worth, but right now, he's nowhere near that.

As Gary Lineker said over the weekend:

Natural born goalscorer is @D_Sturridge . Can't be taught. He just gets it!

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) August 17, 2014

Amen. Sturridge has to prove himself in Europe, and on the international stage in order to be considered 'World Class', but he clearly has the talent to achieve that exulted status.

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Author: Jaimie K