When it comes to Liverpool Football Club, there have been many players that you could call ‘excellent’. Luis Suarez, for example, absolutely lit up the Premier League during his spell at Anfield, but couldn’t be put on a ‘best ever’ list owing to the fact that he was such a problematic character.
Virgil van Dijk might well be proof that you should really look at the ‘best ever’ in each position, given the fact that defenders are often overlooked in such a list, with Alan Hansen likely to level the same criticism. Really, though, I think there are three players that could realistically make the claim to be the best we’ve ever seen, so I’ll look at them here.
Kenny Dalglish
If you’re going to have a conversation about overall impact on the football club, Kenny Dalglish will always be close to the top of the list if not on it outright. As a player, he was a magician with the football at his feet. Those that played with him, like Ian Rush, owe so much to Dalglish’s ability to put the ball on a plate for them as they added goal after goal to their tally.
He also knew how to score them himself and found the net in some big moments, none more so than the winner against Bruges in the European Cup final in 1978. Asa player he lifted the First Division title six times, adding an FA Cup, four League Cups and three European Cups.
Probably you've seen this picture so many times before. It was taken on 10 September 1983 at Highbury when Liverpool FC beat Arsenal 2-0. Craig Johnston and King Kenny Dalglish scored for Liverpool that afternoon as #LFC produced some magic once again. pic.twitter.com/TN1fXliXqc
— LFChistory.net (@LFChistory) September 10, 2024
Then he went and did it all again as a manager. He stepped up to the plate after the departure of Joe Fagan in the wake of the Heysel Stadium Disaster, leading the club at an incredibly difficult time. As manager, he built one of the best teams supporters had ever seen, winning three titles, two FA Cups and, in his second spell at the helm, another League Cup.
Yet it was his work off the pitch that made him such a remarkable figure, being an absolute rock in the weeks, months and years after the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster. None of that can be taken into account in terms of being the best ever player, of course, but it makes him one of the best ever people.
Steven Gerrard
When Steven Gerrard retired as a player, the immediate thought of many was that he would turn to management and return to Anfield in the dugout in the future. It seemed like the natural career path for someone who gave his absolute all to the Red shirt. In the end, of course, he turned out to be a rubbish manager and decided to ignore the human rights abuses taking place in Saudi Arabia in order to be paid handsomely to manage their instead.
The desire for him to be a manager was easy to understand, though, on account of the fact that he was unquestionably one of the best ever to wear the Liverbird on his chest.
It wasn’t just that he was a tough tackler, nor that he was a superb passer. It wasn’t about the goals that he scored, nor the assists he racked up week after week. Rather, it was that he could do all of it and was doing so during a time when the players around him were, to be generous, not always particularly good. Gerrard dragged Liverpool to trophies and performances that should’ve been beyond them on a yearly basis.
We don’t win the Champions League in Istanbul in 2005 if not for Gerrard, both on the day and in the earlier rounds. He was a dynamo across the park throughout his career, right up until the last moment.
Mohamed Salah
It says something about Mo Salah’s time in a Red shirt that he makes my list even whilst he’s still playing. The Egyptian arrived at Anfield somewhat unfancied, having failed to impress during his previous time in the Premier League at Chelsea. It didn’t take long for people to realise just how much quality he offered, though, scoring 36 goals in his debut season.
Whilst some commentators described him as being similar to ‘Juan Cuadrado’, the player himself set about breaking record after record at Anfield.
@liverpoolfc
The term ‘only Mo Salah’ became something of a meme, given how often it was used to talk about him exceeding other players’ accomplishments. He is chasing down more records every time he plays, with some of the club’s biggest goal scorers now in his sights.
The only thing that stops him from topping this list is that he wasn’t a player all over the pitch like Gerrard. As an attacker, though, he deserves to be mentioned alongside the likes of Rush and Fowler.
