Choosing Liverpool’s best fifteen players has been hard and it was tough to leave some out. There will be those who might feel that the likes of Titi Camara, Karl Heinz Riedle and even Erik Meijer deserve inclusion but this is a completely subjective list so I make no excuse for my choices. What I can admit to, however, is that initially I wanted to list the top twenty five players but eventually couldn’t justify so many. A dilemma that anyone compiling such a list five years down the line, or perhaps earlier, might not have given that most new players are coming from overseas nowadays. Even so, I garner that most of the players I’ve chosen here would still feature.

5 Xabi Alonso
A player strongly wanted by Benitez when he first joined, Alonso has proven to be invaluable in his three and a half years at Anfield. An incredible passer of the ball, calm, determined and passionate about the club, he smashes all the stereotypes about Spanish players and despite the competition, a regular at the heart of midfield when fit.

4 Jerzy Dudek
A choice that is largely influenced by what happened on the 25th May 2005, Dudek was a good keeper who suffered the occasional lapses that rarely go unpunished at the highest level. Yet what he managed to do in Istanbul, puts him near the top. Not simply the penalty saves but also those two stops from Andriy Shevchenko near the end that kept Liverpool in the game.

3 Jan Molby
Picked up on the cheap from Ajax, Molby has gone on to become a legend at the club. Despite a somewhat bulky physique, his passing was simply something else and made his lack of mobility more a question of style than a problem. That he eventually adopted a Scouse accent was obviously a major plus.

2 Bruce Grobbelaar
If Jerzy Dudek managed to put off Milan’s strikers, it was largely because of Grobbelaar’s actions years earlier. Not a conventional keeper, he efficiently took over from a legend like Ray Clemence and went on to prove on of the best players ever to put on the red shirt.

1 Sami Hyppia
A virtual unknown when Gerard Houllier signed him from Willem II, Hyppia has been the most consistent performer for the past eight seasons. Not the fastest, but with great anticipation and a great man marker, he has made the transition to Benitez’s zonal marking with relative ease and has remained a key figure. A great whichever way you look at him, of this list he’d probably be the only on with a shout of making Liverpool’s finest team ever. With Liverpool he has won everything bar the Premier League title: let’s hope he gets to add that title before he gets to retire.