Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge insists he is not thinking about his own future with the team in the middle of a title challenge.
The 29-year-old’s contract expires in the summer and his pitch time has been limited this season because of the form and fitness of the front three of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane.
Although the former England international is probably the healthiest he has been in several years, his chequered injury record and lack of first-team opportunities is likely to mean there will be no extension to his £120,000-a-week contract.
There has been little speculation about potentially-interested clubs and Sturridge knows it is important not to disrupt the club’s bid to end a 29-year title drought.
“I’m staying focused on right now. You’ve got to live in the present, you can never live in the future,” he told BBC Radio 1 Extra.
“I’ve been at Liverpool a long time and I’m happy too. I want to try and help bring the team some success, to win a trophy with them would be amazing.
“We’ve come close before, finals, almost won the Premier League before but we didn’t quite do it.”
Fellow forward Mane is confident they can finally end their long wait to add to their 18 league championships, the last of which was won two years before he was even born.
Jurgen Klopp’s side currently top the Premier League with a four-point advantage over defending champions Manchester City.
“Of course we are confident if we’re winning – but not too much, we know what can happen,” the Senegal international told liverpoolfc.com.
“We are still professional footballers and we’re still going to try to take it game by game.
“We have experience now. The season is long and we have many games.
“Making pressure for ourselves doesn’t help. Why not just try to win games until the end of the season?”
After a warm-weather break in Dubai the squad returned to training at Melwood on Friday.
They have a number of players – Fabinho (hamstring), Georginio Wijnaldum (knee), Dejan Lovren (hamstring), Trent Alexander-Arnold (knee) and Joe Gomez (foot) – still recovering from injuries.
Manager Jurgen Klopp offered positive updates on Alexander-Arnold, who was initially ruled out for up to four weeks after sustaining his injury at Brighton on January 12, and Wijnaldum.
“He (Alexander-Arnold) is better, much better, but we have to see. It needs to be stable – and in the moment it is stable and it’s about the pain,” the Reds boss told liverpoolfc.com.
“Everyone knows how desperate Trent is to play, he can ignore pretty much everything.
“It will not be long, but is he ready for Leicester (on Wednesday)? I don’t know, we will find out.
“Then it’s West Ham and then Bournemouth. After that he will be 100 per cent, but, until then, we have to see.
“Gini is good, better. The plan is that he will have one session today and then we have to see how he reacts on that. Hopefully we can build from that point.”
Gomez’s return is taking slightly longer than expected, however, having been sidelined since December 5.
“We have to wait, for sure, a couple of weeks. We will see, it is difficult to judge in the moment,” said Klopp.
“We thought three weeks ago he would be closer and then we had to make another diagnosis in which we saw that it didn’t work out so far as we wanted, that’s why he is still not in training or running on the pitch.”
Illness prevented defender Virgil Van Dijk and Fabinho from taking part in Friday’s double session at Melwood.
But Lovren and teenagers Ben Woodburn and Ki-Jana Hoever, who made his first-team debut earlier this month, both returned after minor knocks.
“That’s the weather change, little things. It’s nothing we have to be too concerned about,” said Klopp of his illness absentees.
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