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Iago Aspas will be the third player to wear the number 9 jersey in four seasons for Liverpool. The striker comes in with a good reputation from Celta Vigo, and was the only bright spark in an otherwise lacklustre season for Los Celestes in which they barely survived relegation.
The last two players who donned the number 9 jersey, Andy Carroll and Fernando Torres, had a combined cost of 85 million pounds in their movement in/out of the club in the January 2011. Aspas will hope that his career shapes up more like Torres’s, who probably had his best footballing years at the club, and less like Carroll’s, whose permanent transfer to West Ham was confirmed recently after he never really established himself in the Liverpool side.
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Some of the best players in the history of Liverpool have graced the number 9 jersey. Following are few of the most distinguished among them:
1. Albert Stubbins
Signed from Newcastle in 1946, Stubbins scored on his debut against Bolton. He helped the club win the League Championship in his first season – their first in 24 years – topping the season goal-scoring charts with a total of 28 goals. He went on to enjoy a prolific spell at Liverpool, scoring 83 goals in 178 matches. The Kop still remember him for the spectacular header he scored against Birmingham at Anfield in the 1947 FA Cup.
Additionally, Stubbins was the only footballer to appear on the front cover of the legendary Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.
2. Ian St John
One of the most important signings by Bill Shankly, the Scot joined the team for a club record £37,500 from his hometown team Motherwell in May 1961. Legend has it that when Shankly was refused the permission to sign St John from Liverpool board, his reply was “We can’t afford not to buy him!” St John scored the winning goal in extra-time that won Liverpool its first FA Cup, and played a key role in the team’s transformation from a lowly second division team to one of the most formidable teams in Europe.
Ian St John formed a formidable attacking partnership with Roger Hunt, which caused plenty of problems to the defences across England and Europe. He scored 118 goals in 425 appearances in a distinguished career at Liverpool.
3. Ian Rush
Ian Rush holds the club record of 346 goals in 660 appearances, a record that will take some doing to be broken. His goal-poaching skills made him feared all over Europe and were instrumental in making Liverpool the dominant team in the 1980s.
A lesser-known fact is that Rush’s start to his illustrious career at Liverpool was far from ideal. Signed for a British transfer record for a teenager – £300,000 from Chester in 1980 – Rush didn’t feel settled at the club and it took him nine games to score his first goal. He even requested for a transfer which was rejected by the manager Bob Paisley, who probably knew that the player was destined for big things. Rush eventually managed to establish himself in the team in the 1981-82 season and scored 30 goals to announce that he’d finally arrived on the big stage and didn’t look back after that.
Rush was often called the first line in Liverpool’s defence because, apart from scoring bucketloads of goals, he was also a tireless chaser of the ball. For all his goals and the contribution, Rush is one of the all-time fan favourites at the club, and can be still seen attending Liverpool’s matches and promoting the club in his ambassadorial role.
4. Robbie Fowler
The fourth-highest scorer in the history of the Premier League, Robbie Fowler is among the all-time greats at Liverpool. Christened ‘God’ by the fans, Fowler joined the club at the age of 11, and was awarded with a professional contract in 1992 after progressing through the ranks.
Regularly scoring more than 30 goals in a season, Fowler brought up the 100-goal mark in quicker time than Ian Rush. He also received a UEFA Fair Play Award for admitting he hadn’t been fouled in a wrongly awarded penalty to him in a game against Arsenal.
Even during his time away from Liverpool after being transferred out, his love for the club remained the same. He traveled to Istanbul to see the Reds lift the Champions League. He was brought back to the club by Rafa Benitez and occasionally showed glimpses of his class before finally bowing out in 2007. He was given the captain’s armband for his final game and was given a standing ovation by the crowd when he left the field. ‘God’ still retains a special bond with his supporters.
Robbie Fowler scored 183 goals in 369 appearances for Liverpool.
5. Fernando Torres
‘El Nino’ broke a lot of hearts when he pushed for a transfer and ultimately moved to Chelsea in January 2011. But during his time at the club, he scored loads of goals and his partnership with Steven Gerrard made them a formidable attacking duo.
Torres was signed from Atletico Madrid for a then-club record £20 million, and almost instantly made an impact and started wowing the fans with his goal-poaching skills. He went on to score 81 goals in 142 appearances for the club.
Torres appreciated and respected his number 9 jersey, saying “The fact that Liverpool are giving me the number nine jersey just goes to show the confidence they have placed in me, when considering those who have worn that shirt before me.”
In the Liverpool’s impressive run to second position in league in 2008/09 season, Torres relished playing as the striker in Rafa Benitez’s 4-2-3-1 formation.
Bigger things were expected from the El Nino at Liverpool, but it wasn’t meant to be. The striker has struggled to replicate his Liverpool form after leaving the club, and has now become a subject of ridicule and mockery. It was a shame that he left the club in the circumstances that he did, and because of that he has now lost all the goodwill he had from almost all the supporters.
Torres played the best football of his career at Liverpool and did justice to the number 9 jersey that he wore during his time at the club, and gave the fans plenty to cheer about.
Aspas will hope to emulate the above players and join them in the list of Liverpool greats who wore the number 9 jersey. Liverpool fans will be praying for the same too, and would want Aspas to carry forward his good form from last season at Celta Vigo to the next one for Liverpool.
