"He's in the best shape since I've known him," Klopp said afterwards. "He's a fantastic football player, and just a good lad."
It had looked for a long time as if Eden Hazard’s goal, finished clinically 25 minutes in, would settle this contest and that Liverpool would be left to rue their own wastefulness.
Mohamed Salah, tentative on his return to his former club, missed a trio of openings in the first half, and both he and Roberto Firmino had efforts scrambled off the line. Shaqiri sliced horribly wide with an excellent opportunity shortly after his own introduction.
"It's like riding a bike," Klopp said. "You don't wake up one morning and forget how to finish, or how to ride a bike. That's how it is.
"A good football team, which we are, creates chances. If we play like we did tonight we will win football matches."
Sturridge, thankfully for Klopp and for Salah and Shaqiri, had a trick up his sleeve. He was jeered upon his arrival, Chelsea fans clearly not enamoured with their former striker, but he was to have the last laugh.
Fit, sharp and scoring, he could be a key figure if Klopp’s side are to keep themselves at the top of the Premier League table. Not many sides have a striker of his quality to call on as a backup.
Liverpool weren’t terrible here, working hard to limit Chelsea’s space and having more than enough of the ball. Rather, that cutting edge to which we were accustomed last season was lacking. Salah looked short, Firmino was peripheral, Sadio Mane too. Still, Chelsea needed Kepa to make a marvellous one-handed stop to deny Mane after half-time. The visitors always carried a threat.
In the end it was a draw which felt like a victory to those who had travelled down from Merseyside. Liverpool’s supporters were left singing as they headed off towards Fulham Broadway, given a moment to savour by their No.15.
Chelsea may well rue their luck. Sturridge is renowned as a finisher, but not necessarily from that distance - though, as Klopp pointed out, he hit the bar with an eerily similar effort on Wednesday night at Anfield.
Maurizio Sarri’s men will have felt they had done enough to ride out the Liverpool storm, and could have wrapped up the points through Hazard in the second-half. This time, Alisson was equal to the brilliant Belgian.
That proved to be a huge save in the end, the Brazilian making himself big as Hazard raced clear from N’Golo Kante’s quick free-kick. It was, in fact, as decisive an intervention as Sturridge’s.
Sturridge’s, though, is the one which will be replayed up and down the country. We can close the book on goal of the month, surely?
Liverpool’s four-minute man kept the Reds’ charge on course.
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