Brightest Liverpool Strike Association of the Premier League era Anfield never saw

On Friday, Liverpool.com staff produced our first annual (perhaps) rough draft of Liverpool. The rules were as follows:

• Draft 11 players from the Premier League era (1992-2020)

• You can only select a maximum of two players from the same season.

• You get the player version of that year (for example if you choose Philippe Coutinho from the 2013/14 season for example you get the bumpy and baby-faced version, not the finished finished product)

• You can organize your team in any formation.

• You have 90 seconds to make your choice (which felt like 10 seconds in real time).

• Selections would meander from first to fourth, then quarter to first.

Ollie Connolly explained his selection yesterday, which contained some very intriguing choices. I’m next, so here goes …

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Having been the last to come out of the four to make my first pick, three of the premium options I had in mind were immediately removed from the draft board: Steven Gerrard, Luis Suárez and Mohamed Salah. Therefore, I decide to go as strong as possible in the back, and continue from there.

For starters, I had no stone formation, and I adapted it as I progressed through the spikes before establishing a 4-4-2 shape, which could well morph into a box more than 4-2-2-2 ” formation. .

In the end, this is what I’m done with.

Election 1, 4th overall: Virgil van Dijk 2019/20

To be honest, I was a little surprised that Van Dijk was not among the first three selections of the others, so with Gerrard, Suárez and Salah they already left, this was a no-brainer. There’s not exactly a glut of Liverpool center backs in my life, so I knew I had to get one early.

Van Dijk is one of the best I’ve ever seen and needs very little other explanation. I went for his 2018/19 season, as that is the only full season he has had so far in Liverpool, and he was named PFA Player of the Year.

Selection 2, 5th overall: Fernando Torres 2007/08

With the best defender on the planet blocked with my first pick, my focus then shifted to the best attacker I could have with Suarez and Salah, who are no longer available. Having toyed with the idea of ​​Michael Owen and Sadio Mané, I decided on Torres to lead the line as my number 9.

2007/08 was the obvious choice, his first and most prolific season for Liverpool, scoring 33 goals in all competitions with Rafa Benitez in which he made that phenomenal connection with Gerrard. At his peak, Torres simply couldn’t be played. The full center forward.

Choice 3, 12 overall: Sami Hyypia, 2001/02

At this point, a handful of other great hitters had been caught, including Mané, Robbie Fowler, Alisson Becker and Xabi Alonso. Therefore, my thought was to double down on defense and secure the strongest central defense association available, so Hyypia came straight to me along with Van Dijk.

I first started watching football in the early 2000s, and Hyypia was a mainstay throughout that period alongside Jamie Carragher, both brilliant defenders in their own right, but Hyypia also scored many goals. He was named Liverpool Player of the Year and was included in the PFA Team of the Year in 2001/02, so that was the logical choice of the season for me.

Choice 4, 13 in general: Javier Mascherano, 2008/09

This took up a significant portion of my allotted 90 seconds to exercise, as I still had no midfielder in my squad. Gerrard and Alonso were already gone, and in the back of my mind I knew there were plenty more good midfielders and strikers with an attack mentality left.

So I went with Mascherano as the coach in front of my defense. Fabinho was a temptation, but I struggled with the fact that so far he has only had two very good half seasons for Liverpool, rather than a full one. I could have taken several versions of Mascherano, but I ended up going with 2008/09 as he was such a key part of that Benitez team that he barely missed the Premier League title.

He was excellent that season alongside Gerrard and Alonso, providing the grumpy, gritty presence that allowed his supreme technical quality to shine as brightly as it did.

Election 5, 20th General: Jordan Henderson, 2019/20

I had intended to take Owen or Alisson for now, but with both of them off the table, I decided to pair Mascherano with Henderson’s version of this season in midfield. I’ve long admired Henderson long before it’s in style, and I’ve considered two other seasons, including 2013/14.

However, this season has taken his game to another level and has been the driving force behind this amazing Liverpool team. His form, especially since Fabinho’s injury in late November during the holiday period and in the New Year, was phenomenal, and if there is finally a PFA Player of the Year, he would be a very worthy winner.

It has a little bit of everything: defensive steel, positional intelligence, excellent pass range, occasional goal and, of course, exceptional leadership credentials.

Choice 6, 21 overall: Daniel Sturridge, 2013/14

With my defense and midfield forming very well, it was time to get another quality striker. Most of the big names had already been taken, but oddly not Sturridge. His 2013/14 season lived up to the best individual seasons for a Liverpool player in my life, and I often feel that his contribution has been overlooked because of how sensational Suarez was.

Sturridge, at his best, had it all. He could score virtually any type of goal, he could fall to the center of the field to link the game, stretch the defenses by running behind and create opportunities for others. It’s a shame that we’ve only been able to see that version of Sturridge for such a short period of time.

The idea of ​​lining it up next to the 08/08 Torres is a delightful prospect. Get the ball in your lazy neighborhood and rank the rest, was my line of thought. Their careers at Liverpool were separated by a couple of years, and none of them was at the peak of their powers when they played together at Chelsea. If they had overlapped their pomp, they could not have been an unstoppable force, one of the great association strikes that never were.

Election 7, 28 general: Dirk Kuyt, 2010/11

With Torres and Sturridge as a central forward pairing, any prospect of a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 was out of the window, so I started building around a 4-4-2 shape. He needed someone who could move between midfield and attack, score and create goals, while making a great defensive change off the ball.

Kuyt fits the bill perfectly, fitting in on the right side next to Henderson. He wasn’t flashy, rarely spectacular, but he was the type of player who could reliably do any job you asked of him at a reasonable level. I could have gone to Kuyt 2008/09, but I had to start thinking strategically here about leaving other options open, so I decided to go for 2010/11.

Liverpool were obviously not very good all that season, but they were Kuyt’s highest overall goal score, reaching 15 in all competitions. While others underperformed, their levels did not drop at all.

Election 8, 29 in general: Fabio Aurelio, 2008/09

Now, I practically had my team’s spine tidy, and I needed to start filling in the sides. With Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson missing, a full backup was a necessity or else he would actually start fighting later.

With slightly more options on the right than on the left, I chose Aurelio from 2008/09, in my opinion, the next best alternative to Robertson and the Brazilian’s best season in Liverpool. Although he was not as fast as lightning, he had almost everything you would want from a left-hander, and he was a very effective creative force with his left foot wand, both open game crosses and pieces. It could also mark the strange beauty, of course.

Like Sturridge, it’s a shame that persistent injuries prevented him from reaching the full potential.

Election 9, 30 overall: Maxi Rodríguez, 2010/11

With only three spaces to fill, I had to find someone who could play on the left side of my midfield in a 4-4-2 system. Mané was long gone, as were Raheem Sterling and Steve McManaman (although, unfortunately, my experience of seeing the latter came only through YouTube).

Maxi was the one who immediately came up with it, the Argentine being one of the most ignored Liverpool players of the last decade IMHO. He scored 10 goals in 2010/11, including two hat-tricks in the space of three games towards the end of the season with Kenny Dalglish. It is unfortunate that Liverpool failed to catch him a couple of years earlier, as I think he could really have thrived on a better team.

(I recorded afterwards that Luis Garcia had somehow stayed on the shelf, and perhaps it might have been the best option here …)

Election 10, 37 overall: Alvaro Arbeloa, 2007/08

I needed a right back, so with Alexander-Arnold taken I was split between Arbeloa and Steve Finnan. For the sake of team chemistry, I went for the Spanish, given his experience playing on that side 2008/09 alongside players like Aurelio, Mascherano, Kuyt and Torres.

However, with my two spaces from the 08/09 season already occupied by Aurelio and Mascherano, I took the Arbeloa version from the previous season. A stable and reliable presence that once bagged Lionel Messi at the Camp Nou (although on the left side), Arbeloa became a key figure at Real Madrid and a regular feature of the Spanish national team during his time. golden.

Liverpool replaced him with Glen Johnson, and it was only in the years that followed that it became fully apparent how good an Arbeloa player really was.

Choice 11, 44 overall: Adrian, 2019/20

Here it is, the absolute final pick of the draft. I had made a conscious decision to prioritize my field selection at the expense of the goalkeeper slot, and with Alisson, Pepe Reina and Jerzy Dudek missing, there were only slim picks. At first, I refused to have Simon Mignolet or Loris Karius on my team, as there are too many bad memories associated with both.

So after a brief flirtation with Sander Westerveld, a player I don’t really recall having seen play for Liverpool, I went for Adrian, simply for his two-month stint at the beginning of the current season, which is the best Liverpool season of my life. Yes, there have been a few concussions along the way, but overall he did as well as anyone could have expected to have been thrown to the bottom at the time.

Usually

So there you have it. I’m quite satisfied with the shape of mine, apart from the goalkeeper. There’s a rock-solid baseline with the best center-center association you can pick from, a muscular, hard-working midfield in front of them, and an electrical pairing of Torres and Sturridge to provide the firepower at the top.

If there’s any concerns, maybe it’s the lack of scorching pace and creative flair, though with Aurelio’s on-time delivery, Maxi and Kuyt cut from the flanks and Henderson can move forward with Mascherano’s anchor behind him, I think he has enough already.

It may not be the type of team that Jürgen Klopp would ideally choose, but he would give this group of 11 players Benitez for a unique game to win and would absolutely back them up to do the business.