08 October 2006

100 Players Who Shook The Kop

In honor of Liverpool’s website finishing up the “100 Players Who Shook The Kop” series (in case you couldn’t have guessed, Kenny Dalglish was #1), I figured I’d post not only the top 10 list I submitted for the contest, but also my all-time Liverpool XI. Partly because I find it interesting reading material, partly for posterity’s sake.

In both lists, I’m mainly limited to the 1970s onward. I lived through the 1980s-1990s, and I can claim to have seen a number of the 1970s teams on tape, but I can’t argue the merits of stars like Elisha Scott, Roger Hunt, Ian Callaghan and the like. The only old-time player on my list is Billy Liddell, who I can’t leave off even if I’ve never seen him, simply as he was so influential, they named the team after him (Liddellpool) in the 1950s. Without him, Liverpool might be languishing in the third division.

100 PWSTK
Kenny Dalglish
Ian Rush
Emlyn Hughes
John Barnes
Robbie Fowler
Graeme Souness
Billy Liddell
Steven Gerrard
Michael Owen
Alec Lindsay

Alec Lindsay was the only player I put on the list who didn’t show up in the top 15. I had to include him. I really wanted to see Lindsay make the list, and while #85, behind players like Cisse, Berger, and Smicer is too low, it’s nice to see him in the project. One of the first LFC videos I got was of the FA Cup final versus Newcastle in 1974, and I’ll never forget the goal Lindsay scored that was wrongly disallowed. Pure class.

As for an all-time Liverpool XI, there’s two ways I wrote this up. I used the ‘classic’ 4-4-2, as everyone always seems to, but also want to include a 3-5-2 version, because Liverpool has had some great attackers, and the formation lets me include more of the players I want in the team.

First, the 4-4-2:
Clemence
Neal Hansen Hughes Kennedy
Heighway Souness Mølby Barnes
Dalglish
Rush

Bench: Scott, Lawrenson, Gerrard, Fowler, Keegan

3-5-2:


So many players left out. Aside from the bench, I also thought about including McDermott, McManaman, Jones, Case, Smith, and Beardsley. Liverpool certainly has been lucky over the years. Although luck has little to do with it when you have men like Shankly and Paisley guiding the club.

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