Watch Daniel Sturridge during a match and it is easy to jump to the conclusion that he is a selfish, vain sulker, a player with little regard for his team-mates and manager but plenty for himself. At least, that was the image many people had of him while he was at Chelsea, when he would drive supporters to distraction with his insistence on shooting from ludicrous angles and a demeanour that suggested he was more interested in personal glory than the needs of the team.

Appearances can be deceiving. Listen to Sturridge speak and the Liverpool striker comes across as a driven young man with his head firmly in the right place. Go one step further and listen to his parents and an impression starts to form of the Daniel Sturridge the cameras don't see: focused family man, expert cook, clean-living professional, dorky dancer and, most surprisingly of all, committed and talented dominoes player. "He's very good at dominoes," Sturridge's father, Michael, says with the laugh of a man who has lost to his nimble-fingered son more times than he would care to remember.

There cannot be too many Premier League footballers who play dominoes, with or without their family, but the Sturridges love it and Daniel regularly plays against his grandad. "It's an Afro-Caribbean thing," Michael says. "We have domino tournaments and it's really passionate. He doesn't like losing." What happens if he loses? "He's gutted. He wants to win, he wants to carry on."

Like most professional athletes, Sturridge abhors defeat, whether at dominoes, table tennis or football, though, Michael adds, he wins most things he puts his mind to. That has been the case this season, with Sturridge's partnership with Luis Suárez firing Liverpool to within touching distance of their first title in 24 years. The forward should play against Chelsea having missed his side's last game through a niggling hamstring injury, and he is likely to spearhead England's attack at the World Cup this summer too.

That seemed unlikely when Chelsea lost patience and sold Sturridge to Liverpool for £12m last year. At that point, many wondered whether he had the focus to succeed at the top but Sturridge, 24, has come of age this season.

His father says this is nothing new, that Sturridge has always been level-headed, ever since he used to take him to the park in Birmingham and practise his skills. "We used to dribble round cones," Michael says. "He used to dribble round cones with his left and right foot and practise striking the ball inside and outside the foot. He's been doing that from a very young age."

It helps that Sturridge comes from a footballing family. His uncles, Dean and Simon, played for Derby County and Stoke City respectively and his father was signed by Sir Alf Ramsey for Birmingham City as a schoolboy, before a spell in Finland. Their guidance has been invaluable.

"The first time he has lived away from home was when he moved to Liverpool," Michael says. "So now he's living with his brother and his cousin. They live in Liverpool with him. It's the first time he's been away from the family but we do see him regularly. We watch every home game. I still give him stick for whatever he does wrong. I'm one of his biggest critics.

"Anything he does wrong in the game, we try and look at how he could do it better. But Daniel's hard on himself anyway so he always looks to improve in everything he does in the game, whether it's closing down, working for the team."

Sturridge is a student of the game, poring over clips of his favourite players when he was growing up. "He's always been doing that, since he was eight years old, he's always been watching players," Michael says. "We're talking about VHS. He had loads. And before that, he was watching Betamax. He was watching me, because I played in Finland and he watched me play when I was there.

"He takes the mickey out of me, saying I wasn't a bad player.

"He would study the videos and try to do the things he saw the star players do, whether he was celebrating. He's been celebrating from a very young age. He would imitate a bit of every player. One week he would celebrate this way, the next week he would celebrate a different way. But he had a love for the game. He loved to celebrate and he hated losing. He's very, very competitive."

One thing Sturridge did not get from his parents is the celebration that has become his trademark: the Sturridge dance. "To be honest, I'm wondering where he got it from!" Michael says. "I didn't know he could move like that! But I think he did it for a bit with his cousins and he's just been celebrating like that after doing it once. I think it was something his cousins dared him to do and he's just been doing it ever since."

Earlier Sturridge had been talking about his love of cooking and this seems like the perfect time to find out whether he was telling the truth. Michael says that he is "unbelievable" but a better judge is standing next to him.

"Seriously, he can cook," says his mother, Grace, and she is deadly serious. "He does a lot of healthy cooking at home. He's a dab hand in the kitchen. He can look after himself."

In the kitchen, on the dance floor, on the domino table and on the football pitch.