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Columns

SHAKEN AND STIRRED BY THE GREATS
Friday, October 06, 2006

by
Paul Tomkins for liverpooltv.co.uk

This week sees the culmination of a quite monumental countdown: as definitive a list of Liverpool’s best-ever players as you are likely to get.


The slight flaw with a voting system is that the more modern players receive a slightly unfair advantage; while older fans are well aware of current players – I get emails from pensioners discussing Steven Gerrard – younger fans will not have seen many of the older players, and if they have, it is in limited television highlights from the days before every game was recorded. Meanwhile, players from the first few decades of the club's history stand little chance of appearing; we just can't judge them.

But on the whole I think it's an excellent representation of those players who have mattered most in the 114 years of the club.

Some are recognised more for historic moments than consistent contributions; fellow columnist David Fairclough may not have got to start every game during his time at the club, but he made some telling contributions, and none more so than the decisive goal in the 1977 European Cup quarter-final against St Etienne: a goal that helped change the destiny of the club, as it moved towards becoming European Champions for the first time. Where would Liverpool FC be if, when faced with the French keeper, Fairclough had bottled the chance?

Michael Thomas, whose Liverpool career never really took off, helped win the 1992 FA Cup with a great goal, although he arguably shook the Kop harder than any opposition player, when, in 1989, he squirmed free with the aid of a fortuitous deflection to steal the league for Arsenal in the last minute of the last game of what was already the most emotional season in the club's history.

Mark Walters' greatest moment was in 1991, against Auxerre; beyond that, and a 13-goal return in 1992/93, he wasn't the success people were hoping for. He almost certainly suffered from comparisons with John Barnes (who wouldn't?).

Then there's the fact that sometimes we simply get attached to players who aren't necessarily up there with the greats. Mike Marsh was always a player I really liked, though he wouldn't be in a countdown like this. I just liked his style. Some people clearly felt the same way about Erik Meijer.

There are also the cases of unfulfilled potential. Liverpool rarely sold players before they had served their full use, but equally, few players were allowed to stay to the point of decline; Bob Paisley was a master at knowing just the right time to release someone. But a few of the players in this countdown saw their careers curtailed when they still had much to offer.

Mark Lawrenson was forced to retire at just 29, while Rob Jones had to hang up his boots at 27: both were quick and talented defenders. Both would have been higher placed had they not been cut down in their prime.

Meanwhile an injury in 1991 robbed the Reds of the marauding wing-play of the mercurial John Barnes, but such was his talent on the ball and his quick-thinking that he found himself reinvented as a central midfielder. But it is his days on the left wing that will live longest in the memory, and which make him a bona fide legend.

I'm not sure a player's medals are an accurate way to judge his individual ability and impact. Clearly you need to have something about you to stay around for a long period at a club winning lots of silverware, but it doesn't mean you were a key man. Similarly, some great players never won the league title with Liverpool. Is it their fault that they weren't surrounded by better players, or the team given more direction from the sidelines?

I think the top 50, starting from Albert Stubbins, is where the list really starts to make sense, with token inclusions like cult-hero Erik Meijer filtered out, and where not one player seems out of place in this particular pantheon.

Gary McAllister is one of the few deservedly exalted stars who only spent a short time at Anfield. His experience was crucial in the 2001 Treble. John Aldridge is another who came, succeeded, and left within a couple of seasons.

Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia have plenty of time to consolidate their positions, although they are riding high on recent achievements. Alonso has been the more consistent of the two, and is one of the best passers ever to represent the club (and can only get better, at just 24), but perhaps no Red has scored more crucial goals than Garcia en route to winning the European Cup.

Jamie Carragher, at no.7 in the list, has come such a long way in the last two years. I was always a fan of Carra's, but I used to see him more as a vital 12th man, whose versatility was essential but who seemed a little limited wherever he played; now he's absolutely central to team. He really came of age at centre-back in 2004.

Six years ago I included Steven Gerrard alongside Graeme Souness in the heart of my all-time Liverpool team, which appeared in the club's official magazine. I'd already seen enough of the prodigiously-gifted 20-year-old to make such a bold assertion, and in recent years that faith has looked totally justified.

My thinking was based on how good he would certainly be, as he had yet to prove too much at that stage. There's still more to come, as he enters the 'mature' phase of a player's career; allying his great physical attributes (pace, strength, stamina) to a greater level of experience. One thing's for sure: there's never been a more versatile player at the club.

That versatility may work against him in some ways, but it's a great thing for a manager to have at his disposal. I was fortunate enough to be present to see Gerrard excel in both full-back positions, going back to the early days of Gérard Houllier's reign: against Everton at Anfield, when he put in possibly the best right-back performance I've ever seen, and at Villa Park, when he moved to left-back after 15 minutes and looked like he'd been there all his life. Centre-back and goalkeeper are the only two positions in which I've yet to see him perform.

Robbie Fowler, like his mentor, Ian Rush, is that rarity in the list: the hero with two spells at the club. While Fowler's currently out of the picture (perhaps ahead of an important role in the second half of the season?), in his time on the pitch during this second spell he's scored some important goals at a very good rate.

But it's his first period at the club, and the form he was in a decade ago, that made him a firm fans' favourite. It wasn't just the amount of goals he scored, but the way he did so. There was genius in the variety, imagination and subtlety as he found the back of the net. Not the quickest, and by far from the tallest, he could improvise and pull a rabbit out of the hat in any situation. If the shot was there to be hit by his less-favoured right foot, he'd use it.

Rush, my boyhood idol, scored the most goals (although Roger Hunt netted more in the league), but Fowler was, to my mind, the more gifted finisher. However, Rush scored the goals that led to league titles and European Cups. Both were big-game players, but Rush played in the biggest games possible.

So many great players. So many vivid memories. But who is the very best of the very best? For me, out of the two main candidates I’d vote for, it's still an easy decision.

The late, great Billy Liddell is an absolute legend; the team was dubbed Liddellpool, so that is indicative of the esteem in which he was held. But I only know of his genius from second-hand information, as he was clearly before my time. Sometimes you have to accept the received wisdom, and trust the older knowledgeable fans. That he could still come in as high as 6th so many years after his pomp tells its own story.

But Bob Paisley always said Kenny Dalglish was the greatest player ever to represent the club, and as he knew Liddell well, that's good enough for me.

'King Kenny' wasn't the tallest or the strongest (not that he could be bullied), nor did he have much pace to speak of. But he had the ultimate footballing brain. There's nothing quite so thrilling in football as when a player sees something no other possibly could; sees something that we, as fans in the stands or watching on tv, with our bird's eye vantage points, don't even spot.

It will be interesting to see how the list looks in ten years' time. Hopefully it'll include a few current and future stars who help fill the ever-burgeoning Anfield trophy cabinet.

Finger Acrobatics Performed by Avloomat @ 2:15 AM,




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