Five Liverpool legends who deserve to be in the Premier League Hall of Fame | OneFootball

Liverpool legends Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen are again gunning for a place in the Premier League Hall of Fame.

The striking duo have been nominated every year since the Hall of Fame opened back in 2021, but have yet to be inducted.

Alongside inductee Steven Gerrard, they are the only Reds who have been nominated for the award with other club legends suffering from the fact that Liverpool have only one Premier League title on their roll of honour.

Nonetheless there are plenty of now-retired Liverpool stars who have lit up the Premier League since 1992.

It’s only a matter of time before the likes of Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk appear in the Hall of Fame once their playing days are at an end but here we nominate five more Reds legends who deserve a nomination for a place in the Premier League Hall of Fame.

Jamie Carragher

Nottingham Forest v Tottenham Hotspur Premier League 15/12/2023. Jamie Carragher of Sky Sports during the Premier League match between Nottingham Forest and Tottenham Hotspur at the City Ground, Nottingham, England on 15 December 2023. Copyright: xJezxTighex PSI-18643-0091

Twice a Premier League runner-up, Jamie Carragher is also ninth on the list of players with the most Premier League appearances.

A veteran of 17  Premier League seasons, Carragher is part of the illustrious 500+ club, a select band of players who have played more than 500 times in the top flight.

The defender filled out many roles for the club throughout his career, including stints in both full-back slots.

But it’s at centre back where the one-club man made his name.

His performances during the 2004-05 season, when Liverpool won the Champions League, earned him a nomination for that year’s Ballon d’Or award.

Carragher was also twice voted as the club’s Player of the Year, and made it to the PFA Players’ Team of the Year in 2005/06.

Carragher’s consistency and longevity are practically unmatched throughout the league’s history.

Steve McManaman

Local lad McManaman was the creative force around which the Liverpool team was built throughout the 1990s.

Often derided as an underachieving outfit, under Graeme Souness and Roy Evans, the Reds could nonetheless rely on Macca’s consistency, dribbling skills and tireless running to keep them in contention.

He enjoyed a fantastic relationship with Fowler and, later, Owen and has been described by plenty of ex-Reds as the greatest player they ever played with.

Unfortunate to play in an era where Liverpool didn’t challenge for league titles, McManaman is probably the club’s best player of the decade.

Sir Alex Ferguson was famously fearful of McManaman whenever his Manchester United team played against Liverpool, often deploying a destructive man-marking system to cancel him out.

A unique, maverick talent who could feature across the attack, McManaman excelled as a free spirit in Evans’ mid-90s edition of the Reds.

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John Barnes

Ranked by many of his peers as one of the best players in the world by the end of the 1980s, Barnes’ game had changed significantly by the time the Premier League was inaugurated in 1992.

A devastating achilles injury during an England friendly earlier that summer had robbed him of his electrifying pace and he converted from all-conquering left-winger to midfield general.

Barnes could see the game like few others and he dictated the tempo in the centre for the Reds throughout the mid-90s.

Another all-time great whose team achievements didn’t match his talent throughout a fallow period for the Anfield side, Barnes nonetheless deserves to be recognised for his creativity, vision and leadership.

If this was an English top-flight award and not solely Premier League, he would be in by now.

Xabi Alonso

Bildnummer: 01557672 Datum: 25.05.2005 Copyright: imago/UlmerXabi Alonso (li.) und Milan Baros (beide Liverpool) - Torjubel

Xabi Alonso, the deep-lying playmaker with a penchant for a tackle, spent five years on Merseyside, earning runners-up honours in 2009.

He was integral to the club winning their fifth-ever Champions League title in 2005 and also picked up an FA Cup in 2006. In total he played 210 times for the Reds, scoring 19 times.

Rafael Benitez was prepared to sell Alonso in the summer of 2008 in order to make way for Gareth Barry, however, no club met the manager’s asking price. Liverpool fans were outraged, chanting Alonso’s name during a pre-season friendly against Lazio.

When he returned to the side, Steven Gerrard was moved by Benitez into the second striker position, just behind Fernando Torres.

It was a managerial masterstroke with the Reds finishing second in the league. Alonso enjoyed perhaps his finest campaign ever before departing for Real Madrid.

Fernando Torres

Fernando Torres, Liverpool’s No.9.

This player and this club were destined to be together and Reds saw the very best of Torres in a whirlwind three-and-half-year spell, where he worked in tandem with Steve Gerrard. Sadly, it delivered him no trophies.

His search for those took him to Chelsea for a record £50m fee after handing in a transfer request in January 2011.

Despite the goals, the songs and the memories, Liverpool fans have taken a long time to forgive him for it.

Torres shone bright, and during his time at Liverpool he was ranked as the greatest striker in the world. He was twice named in the PFA Players’ Team of the Year and twice in the FIFA FIFPro World XI.

He signed off with 65 league goals in 102 appearances.

Torres was, arguably, never the same player after suffering the effects of too many injuries. There is a marked difference between Liverpool’s Torres, of those pre-injury days, and post.

“No doubt, it was my peak as a player,” he told the official Liverpool website of his time at the club back in 2019.

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