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Top 10 Players Who Shook The Kop!

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Liverpool FC playersFOLLOWING the much debated and widely popular “100 Players Who Shook The Kop” series that appeared in 2006, Liverpool FC are re-launching their prestigious countdown for 2013.

The website is welcoming fans to submit their Top 10 until the end February, so please do so by clicking here.

The official site will be revealing the results in a countdown over the forthcoming summer.

In 2006 the Top 10 Players Who Shook The Kop looked like this:

1. Kenny Dalglish

2. Steven Gerrard

3. Ian Rush

4. Robbie Fowler

5. John Barnes

6. Billy Liddell

7. Jamie Carragher

8. Kevin Keegan

9. Graeame Souness

10. Emlyn Hughes

Few could doubt the worthiness of these players as Liverpool greats, but fewer still would have picked this exact combination of players in this order. The list, by virtue of the types of LFC fans who frequent the website (i.e. internet savvy), is always likely to favour more recent players, over players of a bygone age that fewer fans have had the privilege to watch, but it is nevertheless a strong indicator of which players are held in the highest esteem by those for whom the club exists, us fans.

The 2006 list however did come up with some anomalies and strange decisions, in my view:

Jerzy Dudek (No.36) higher than Elisha Scott (No.41)

Luis Garcia (No.24) higher than Xabi Alonso (No. 33)

Vladimir Smicer (No. 64) higher than Ronnie Moran (No.70)

With the likes of Eric Meier (No.99) and Nigel Clough (No. 97) sneaking in at the end.

Rather than disproving the wisdom of crowds this is perhaps more indicative of the afterglow of Istanbul that was still fresh when the survey was made in 2006. No doubt the more recent excellence of players like Luis Suarez and Lucas Leiva will see them join the 100 and push a few others out, but while our history and tradition is the bedrock of who we are as a club, the present perhaps understandably takes a front seat as new greats and legends are created.

Perhaps a distinct lack of glorious moments since the last survey (beating Cardiff City on penalties in the League Cup doesn’t really compare to beating Milan on penalties in the European Cup) will mean that a higher focus is placed on great players from former generations.

At the risk of being pilloried I have made my choices on my Top 10 Players ‘Who Shook The Kop’, submitted on the LFC website and sharing them with you below.
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Please feel free to post your own Top 10 in the comments section, as we’re very keen to see what the readers of L4L think and hope it will generate some healthy debate.

I disclose beforehand, that I made a couple of ‘strategic’ decisions in my list which I will explain in a moment.

1. Billy Liddell

2. Steven Gerrard

3. Kenny Dalglish

4. John Barnes

5. Elisha Scott

6. Alan Hansen

7. Graeme Souness

8. Emlyn Hughes

9. Steve McManaman

10. Jan Molby

Any Top 10 list by any Liverpool fan is going to be controversial and no doubt many of you are shaking their heads at some of my selections, but hopefully we can all agree that these were fantastic players for our club during the time they played – regardless of in what circumstances they left the club (McManaman), or subsequent damage they did to the club (Souness as a manager and critic).

A few things I want to explain in regards to my choices above.

I have made a decision (whether you call it strategic voting or bias I don’t really mind) to place Billy Liddell 1st and Elisha Scott 5th so that they are hopefully placed higher than the 6th and 41st positions they achieved in the 2006 Survey.

Many of the elder generation of Liverpool fans won’t vote in this survey, but I have a belief that if all Liverpool fans, both living and deceased, had a chance to vote, Billy Liddell may well have come out top. When we were in the old 2nd Division, if it hadn’t been for Billy Liddel’s goals and superhuman performances we would have been relegated to the then 3rd Division and heaven knows what would have happened.

Anyone who saw Billy play (and subsequently also watched Kenny and Stevie) still place Billy Liddell at the top. Their voices are unfortunately too few nowadays as time takes its inevitable toll, so I chose to add mine to theirs.

Elisha Scott played over 400 games for Liverpool under extremely difficult circumstances and I believe that goalkeepers are not as highly valued in these surveys as they should be.

I put Stevie G ahead of Kenny for the same reason Carragher does; he is a World Class player amongst mediocre players, while Kenny had so many fantastic players to play alongside. Another aspect to my decision is that Stevie, in my opinion, is a more complete player – there is no weakness to his game. You can play him left-wing or right-back and he’d still be fantastic.

My ‘favourite’ Liverpool player is John Barnes, but I do not believe him to be a better player than Kenny so he sits in a respectable fourth. I have a soft spot for technically gifted players, I made a post a few weeks back on what I considered to be ‘Liverpool Quality‘, and hopefully my selection echoes this. It is for this reason that Jan Molby sneaks in at No.10.

I know I am likely to get a lot of criticism for picking McManaman ahead of wonderful players like Steve Heighway or Kevin Keegan, but during the period he played, all our good play went through him. He was pivotal in the trophies we won during the time and we really would have been nowhere without him.

Robbie Fowler has gone on record many times to say he was the best player he ever played with, and there’s no doubt that Robbie wouldn’t have scored half the goals he did without his mate Macca.

To be honest, he is the only selection that I made that I still wonder if I should have, but when I removed my rancour over the way he left the club for free and some of things said that were attributed to him, I found it difficult to leave him out of my Top 10.

So there we have it. My Top 10 Liverpool Players Who Shook The Kop. I’d love to hear who your Top 10 are and why you chose them in the comments below!

You can catch more from me on my own blog: http://taintlessred.blogspot.co.uk/
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Gabriel Darshan (Writer) - aka Sutha Nirmalananthan aka TaintlessRed. I am a lifelong Liverpool fan who has followed the Reds from near (e.g. living in Kirkby) and far (e.g. living in Johannesburg), though am again living back home in the UK. I’ve watched football in stadia all around the world, from the Maracana to the Camp Nou, though Anfield will of course always be the greatest! I enjoy healthy football debate, preferring reasoned analysis based on sound evidence over gossip. I also write a blog at http://taintlessred.blogspot.co.uk/ on all things Liverpool FC and you can follow me on twitter @taintlessred

6 comments

  • bob says:

    I can not agree with McManaman at all . Firstly he is a traitor for the way he left in my eyes . Secondly , he never really performed consistently , with his ability he shoud have done more . Apart from Bolton final ,McManaman did not perform in big games and sometimes scored only 5 goals in a whole season .

    McManaman was a favourite of mine but i think his whole career was a disappointment . promised much – delivered little

    Now Molby was a big favourite of mine but i dont think he deserves top 10…. heres my 10
    1. Gerrard
    2. Dalglish
    3. Barnes
    4. Rush
    5 .Fowler
    6. Souness
    7. Hansen
    8. McDermott
    9. E.Hughes
    10.Keegan

    Where is Ian Rush in your top 10 ????

    • TaintlessRed says:

      Rush was 11 Bob, he’d have been 9 on my list if I hadn’t picked Scott or McManaman. I take all your points on McManaman. I guess in a period where everything seemed to be going wrong for us after decades of success his performances (and Robbie goals) were the only things keeping us going. Rushie was a wonderful player, incredible movement and clinical finishing. However I have a penchant for creative players who control games and create goals and hence why Jan and Macca are higher up than they would be on a purely objective assessment.

      • bob says:

        i had a think about McManaman after and thought back to all the greats that have gone before , and i honestly dont think McManaman would have got in my top 40

        i genuinely thought you had mistakenly left Rush out , rather than chosen it. i mean , come on , is 347 goals not enough for you ?

        • Souey's 'tache says:

          I’m with you Bob! How can any lfc fan leave Rushie out of a top 10?!?…Rush scored one, Rush scored two, Rush scored three and Rush scored four…nanananana…

        • TaintlessRed says:

          I know, I know. I was regretting it, as I mentioned in article, the moment I’d clicked send but thought I’d be honest. However I really enjoyed watching the boy play, if he hadn’t left in the circumstances he did (and had instead gone for the hefty sum he was clearly worth) I don’t think his ability would have been so easily dismissed. We haven’t had a winger (although he played in a free role for the second part of his career with us) like him in 2 decades despite buying many. But yeah, point taken.

  • Elisa Purkhiser says:

    We gave $4000 to a referral group in Brentwood last year. Green Credit Solutions was supposed to help us. Nope. Do you think we should file a Small Claims Court case just cuz? No, we don’t expect recovery, but it would be nice to try to nail those crooks somehow!

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