Iago Aspas already has enough on his plate this season without the embarrassment of, thanks to certain sections of the interweb, still having to play down suggestions he sat out an early part of the season with a ruptured rectum. Not that he’d have been doing much sitting with that injury, of course.
Instead, a thigh problem was the reason for the summer signing’s absence from the Liverpool first team. During his time on the sidelines, Aspas took the opportunity to work on building up his strength, ostensibly to make him more hardened to the rigours of Premier League football. But it could also be to help shoulder the burden of history.
After all, as Liverpool’s latest number nine, Aspas is filling some pretty sizeable shoes of those who have gone before him. If the number seven is the Anfield outfit’s most iconic jersey, then that of its usual strike companion is not far behind in terms of importance. Back in the pre-Sky days before the Premier League (yes, young whippersnappers, they really did exist), there was none of this squad number business. Instead, the line-ups were one through to 11, the number nine occupied every game, giving regulars a chance to claim the jersey as their own.
Arguably the first Liverpool player to grasp that mettle was Albert Stubbins. Forever famed for his hat-trick against Birmingham City in the FA Cup, there was more to the north-east lad than diving headers in the snow. Signed from Newcastle United in 1946, Stubbins went on to score 83 goals in 173 appearances and helped Liverpool memorably claim the first post-war league championship in 1947.
The arrival of Bill Shankly as manager ushered in a new era and prompted another heroic number nine. Ian St John’s capture from Motherwell is rightly cited as one of Shankly’s most important signings, helping transform Liverpool from a middling second division outfit to one of the most feared teams in the land. St John’s calling card was a hat-trick in a Liverpool Senior Cup tie against Everton, and the Scot never looked back while forging a devastating strike partnership with Roger Hunt. Two league championships followed promotion to the top flight, sandwiching his most famous contribution of heading the winner against Leeds United at Wembley in 1965 to earn Liverpool their first-ever FA Cup. St John netted 118 goals in 425 appearances for the Reds.
Following such an established figure wasn’t easy. Alun Evans became Britain’s most expensive teenager when snapped up by Shankly in 1968 but despite 33 goals in 111 appearances – including a hat-trick against Bayern Munich – a nightclub incident and a serious injury combined to shake the forward’s confidence to an extent he was never quite the same player again.
The 70s saw a shift in the role of the number nine at Liverpool. Instead of a dead-eye forward, it was a flying winger who maintained the legend, Steve Heighway emerging as one of the club’s most electrifying – and, of course, educated – players as the transition from Shankly to Bob Paisley brought even greater silverware to Anfield.
By the end of the decade, though, the shirt had returned to the back of a striker, David Johnson forming a profitable partnership with Kenny Dalglish that brought him 78 goals in 213 appearances. Johnson, though, was the mere hors d’ouevre to the main course consisting of another dark-haired forward with delightful upper-lip growth who would enjoy an even more memorable pairing with Dalglish.
Step forward, at least once he’d overcome an initial bout of shyness, Ian Rush, simply the greatest striker in Liverpool’s history.
For football followers of a certain vintage – such as ones like yours truly – Rush simply WAS Liverpool in the 1980s, ultimately sweeping up a personal haul of five league championships, five League Cups, three FA Cups and a European Cup. In two spells at the club, Rush scored 346 goals in 660 appearances, a haul that is unlikely to be surpassed. No player has scored more times in FA Cup finals. And a few of those goals may have come against Everton.
During Rush’s season-long sojourn in Serie A in 1987-88, and with replacement John Aldridge claiming the number eight jersey, the nine’s role switched again, this time to right midfield. Ray Houghton was a typical Liverpool capture, hardly headline-grabbing but capable of a fantastic job for the team, and he proved the final piece of the jigsaw of the memorable side that made light of Rush’s absence and walked away with the title that campaign.
By the time Rush left for good in 1996, the crown of Liverpool’s chief marksman had already passed over to Robbie Fowler, the Toxteth-born marksman who, during the difficult decade of the 1990s, provided homegrown solace for the rebuilt Kop. Scoring five goals on his Anfield debut in a League Cup game against Fulham in 1993 set the tone, Fowler was quickly dubbed ‘God’ by his team-mates and is still revered as arguably the most natural English goalscorer since Jimmy Greaves. For four years, Fowler was without peer, netting a series of memorable goals, although his talent was no doubt blunted by a serious injury suffered against Everton in 1998. Nevertheless, Fowler scored in the League Cup and UEFA Cup finals of the treble-winning campaign of 2001 before his controversial exit to Leeds United later that year. Inevitably, though, Fowler was back in the fabled number nine shirt in 2006, and was part of the team that reached the Champions League final the following year.
In between, the Liverpool number nine suffered a rollercoaster period. Nicolas Anelka should have been Fowler’s successor but, for reasons only he knows, Gerard Houllier thought El Hadji Diouf would be a sounder bet, of which the less said the better.
Then came Djibril Cisse, the Frenchman who seemingly had as many hairstyles and injuries as goals but, with his penalty in Istanbul in 2005, his brace in the subsequent UEFA Super Cup win over CSKA Moscow and strike in the FA Cup final against West Ham United in 2006, deserves to be remembered warmly by Liverpool fans.
Which brings us to Fernando Torres. Signed from Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2007, the lethal combination of lightning pace and clinical finishing made the Spaniard the most-feared striker in the world with his efforts taking Liverpool agonisingly close to ending their title drought in 2009. Not since Fowler had a player been so revered on the Kop. But niggling injury and understandable disillusionment at an ailing club collapsing around him prompted Torres to jump ship for £50million to Chelsea in January 2011. The passing of time hasn’t helped heal that wound for many Liverpool fans. And while Torres can point to a subsequently successful career – at one point last year he was a reigning World Cup, European Championship, European Cup and Europa League winner – he has never hit the heights nor enjoyed his football as much as during an Anfield career that saw 81 goals in 142 games
Liverpool quickly splashed out a huge chunk of the Torres money on club record signing Andy Carroll. Likeable, hard-working and hungry, it just didn’t work out for the striker, and once new manager Brendan Rodgers declared it was time to revert to a passing philosophy at Anfield, Carroll’s time was up, although his late Wembley winner in the FA Cup semi-final against Everton in 2012 means his place in club legend is secure.
No pressure, Iago. Good news about the rectum, though.
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