It was a landslide victory in the final in our series which crowned Liverpool’s best XI of all-time, with you, the readers, handing some familiar faces the title.
This is the announcement of the winner of Liverpool’s best-ever XI, where you, the readers, determined the victors during a knockout competition.
Tuesday: Group A
Wednesday: Group B
Thursday: Group C
Friday: Group D
Monday: Quarter-final
Tuesday: Semi-final
Wednesday: Final
For over a week you have been casting your vote for Liverpool’s best XI of all-time, and after starting with 16 contenders we have now crowned a winner.
Our four groups contained sides from as far back as 1959, with various generations of Reds in the running to clinch the title.
But through the process of elimination, we have had to say goodbye to the likes of the 1992 and 1965 FA Cup final outfits, Bob Paisley’s European Cup-winning sides and those who thrilled Anfield against the likes of Real Madrid, Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastle.
Our final two saw Joe Fagan’s Rome gladiators go head-to-head with Jurgen Klopp’s mentality monsters, XI’s which brought the fourth and sixth European Cup back to Anfield respectively.
In addition to the announcement of the final two, we asked for your vote on This Is Anfield’s Twitter and Facebook accounts and a total of 8136 votes were cast.
Both social media platforms returned a landslide victory for the same XI – where a similar winner was crowned on the website, although this time the victory was a marginal one.
Nevertheless, after amassing an emphatic 70.2 percent of the total vote, Klopp’s starting lineup who helped deliver Ol’ Big Ears back to the club in 2019 after a 14-year wait have earned the title of Liverpool’s best XI.
Champions League Final 2019
XI: Alisson; Trent, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson, Wijnaldum; Salah, Firmino, Mane
This particular lineup sees the world’s best goalkeeper in Alisson and the world’s best defender in Virgil van Dijk sit alongside a further five players who finished in the top 26 of the 2019 Ballon d’Or.
It’s not hard to see why many were inclined to give Klopp’s Reds the nod, but there is reason to suggest a touch or recency bias or limited exposure to Fagan’s men of ’84 played its part.
On the This Is Anfield website, 1121 votes were received with Fagan’s side earning 46.4 percent of the vote in comparison to 53.6 percent for Klopp’s chargers.
And for @Kenny, the 1984 side got his vote, he went on to explain: “Two of that side were winning the European Cup for the second time, three of them for the third time and one for the fourth. You have 4 of Liverpool’s top 10 most capped players in the side.”
Similarly, @cookiekopite saw his vote go the same way as he weighed up the XI’s man for man: “If you go player for player then Hansen, Kenny Rushie & Souness walk it, but so do Allison, VVD, Mane, Mo & Robbo. Then it leaves for debate who you would rather have Neal or Trent, Whelan or Gini.”
The list of names up for discussion is something to behold. The players of ’84 have already cemented themselves as legends, while the present-day Reds are in the motions of doing the same.
Moreover, on Twitter and Facebook, the results were not as kind to the European Cup side of 1984, with the 2019 starting lineup earning 74.7 and 72 percent of the vote respectively.
A convincing victory which follows on from top place finishes throughout each stage of our knockout competition.
“We have a lot of potential in the team and the boys mixed it up with an attitude I never saw before and that’s just outstanding.
“And that’s what I meant when I said they are ‘mentality monsters’.” They were the words of Jurgen Klopp after the final whistle in Madrid, words which encompass all the German has built at Anfield.
For a long time, Liverpool have needed to be greater than the sum of their parts, but years of growth have seen them couple the same mentality of underdogs with the quality capable of toppling any side.
The legacy of the XI of ’84 and those during the club’s unprecedented era of success has long been cemented, and now the ones who took to the field in the 2019 Champions League are forging their own.
All of whom are to take another momentous step in doing so when they officially secure the Premier League title, the club’s first in the topflight in 30 years.
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