Illness forces Daniel Sturridge to return home from Liverpool training camp

Daniel Sturridge has bid a premature farewell to Liverpool's warm weather training camp in La Manga, the club revealed on Friday (17 February). The England striker will fly back to the United Kingdom from southeastern Spain after failing to recover from an ilness that has afflicted him all week.

"Daniel Sturridge will return home from Liverpool's mid-season training camp in La Manga on Friday due to a virus," Liverpool confirmed via their official website. "The striker joined his teammates on the trip to Spain earlier this week eager to participate in the daily double sessions, despite feeling unwell.

"However, Sturridge's condition hasn't improved and he will fly back to Merseyside today before resuming training at Melwood as soon as he is well enough. The remainder of the squad will return to Liverpool on Sunday."

Injury-plagued Sturridge has been limited to a peripheral role at Anfield so far this season, netting just two goals in 14 Premier League appearances. The 27-year-old has started only five top-flight matches in 2016-17 and was linked with a move away from Merseyside during the recent January transfer window.

With their involvement in this year's FA Cup abruptly ended by a shock fourth-round home defeat to Championship also-rans Wolverhampton Wanderers, Liverpool, who earned their first league win of 2017 over Tottenham Hotspur last weekend, arrived in La Manga on Wednesday for a four-day mid-season training stint. The Reds do not play again until a trip to Leicester City on 27 February, which is followed by matches against Arsenal, Burnley, Manchester City and Everton.

Most of the first-team squad and a handful of youngsters are all present in Murcia, with injury victims Adam Bogdan, Danny Ings and Ovie Ejaria absent as they continue their respective recoveries. First-choice centre-back Dejan Lovren (knee) and budding midfielder Marko Grujic (tendon issue) also stayed behind, although Klopp claimed yesterday that he is hopeful that duo would be in a position to return to training next week.

"That was the decision of the medical department," he explained. "Of course we have here exactly the same possibilities in the medical department and we have fantastic people at home and they can take care of the players [at home] and take care of them, which makes more sense.

"Hopefully, especially Dejan, [they] can come back to training after when we come back on Sunday, that would be great. Same for Marko Grujic, who is close but not close enough to make the sessions with us, and it's not nice for a player when you're close but you see this, so do your stuff and train [with the group] in the moment you can do it again. So that's all, there are no other reasons."