In February, Carragher told Sky Sports that when Sturridge fails to score the team is "basically down to 10 men."

The 27-year-old made 20 Premier League appearances last season, with seven of those starts, and scored three goals.

Carragher explained that Sturridge spoke to him during the club's recent trip to Australia, telling the Liverpool Echo: "I've got a funny story about that, and I didn't mind it actually -- I was happy about it.

"As soon as I got on the plane, I could see Sturridge wasn't his normal self with me. 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 £20 million 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."